A Wonderful Rival
by Cr1ms0nT3mp3st
Summary: A pricey deed can easily make for a glass prison, the golden sands its remaining days; Leaf Valley's hourglass is already half-empty. An ambitious woman with a heart of ice means to tear down the village, an amusement park to rise from its ashes. Hopes now fall upon a young man's shoulders, but will those entrusted embers be enough to help him stand up against the fury of winter?
1. A night with no end in sight

**_A/N:_** _I still can't believe how amazing this HM game turned out to be. Comic relief that had me laughing to my heart's content and then moments that made me feel genuine sympathy about certain characters and grasp a more profound message from their way of life. My only regret is that I didn't get to play it back when it first got out and had some fans' attention. But better late than never I guess! Have fun reading!_

 ** _Summary:_** _A pricey deed can easily make for a glass prison, the golden sands its remaining days; Leaf Valley's hourglass is already half-empty. An ambitious woman with a heart of ice means to tear down the village, an amusement park to rise from its ashes. Hopes now fall upon a young man's shoulders, but will those entrusted embers be enough to help him stand up against the fury of winter?_

 ** _Rating:_** _T_

 ** _Disclaimer:_** _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

 ** _Chapter 1. A night with no end in sight_**

.

"RENTON! CHAAARLES!"

 _Furious yells shook the entire organization to its foundations. Demanding for delivered results over mere vigilance, the message was clear._

"Be right there boss!"

 _It was another late night at the Funland company._

How many hours had they been in there? Or better yet, how much time had passed since they moved into this despicable, monotonous, life-sucking building? _Twelve months_. You had to be kidding right? That reality was a pill too big for the two staffers to swallow. They only wished throughout a whole year they'd have gotten used to the overtime slaps that queued one after the other almost on a daily basis; and some slaps they were. Two lone men blitzing up and down the floors of the company leaving no stone unturned in order to find the necessary documents that devil of a woman needed for her paperwork.

"Come on Renton! Do you see it anywhere?"

The auburn-haired man wheezed as if life itself was about to bail from his lungs, his chubby associate sweating buckets. They ransacked the entire file depository, drenched not as much in fatigue as in the thought of conceding failure in the presence of Alice's unforgiving gaze.

"I think that's the one Charles, it says— Hey! Give it back!"

In their upstairs expedition they would often trample each other, like game in disarray desperately trying to escape from the menace of a fierce tiger. From that point on it was always a competition of who hands it first. All that for a long shot at favoritism? Of course not. On the other hand, _mercy_ had a nice ring to it. As if they were possessed they finally stormed inside her office, their etiquette all over the place.

"What the hell took you so long!"

Delicate hands slammed on the cluttered desk, the force enough to send a few papers momentarily airborne. Diamond gold earrings tinkled audibly as her petite physique stood with no room for excuses.

But oh dear god... Suddenly it was there! A reward that was above and beyond anything they could ever ask for. The two men swallowed guiltily, their throats reaching a new level of dry. No matter how many times they'd seen the same scene it'd always be a blessing from god.

Alice's impossible aesthetics at full display.

When it came to choice of garb their boss seriously didn't mess around, far from it. Slender arms clad into what otherwise appeared to be a high executive's black suit, with the exception of the sleeves burnishing with golden cuffs that were left unbuttoned. Her shoulders were padded to look puffy as one would expect, and then... If one made the mistake and started checking her from the extension of her arm upwards, they were in for an abrupt wake up.

A single black crop top bra, the band also golden, with a dragonfly-shaped brooch decorating the left side of it. A lariat necklace that cost more than their salaries combined hung almost all the way down to her cleavage. Her mounds were just at the ideal size, molded to shape the testament of an unblemished and youthful ripeness that blended perfectly with the rest of her dainty outline. Talking about light clothing, Alice's entire abdomen laid bare to everyone's unprepared gaze, revealing a naturally fit body and a pelvis with quite the curves.

She also wore a claret colored sash at her waist, tying to her right side with the ends reaching way down her polished thigh. Her skirt was short to a provocative yet professional degree, with golden cropped edges to complement the rest of her apparel. And while they couldn't peek further down because of the desk, the distinctive tapping sound was a giveaway of the golden high-heels she liked.

"We are on a clock here! Stop wasting my time!"

Whenever her temper got the better of her their boss's demeanor would become quite intimidating indeed, yet always in a manner that was no short of elegance. It was one among the many refined complexities that veiled her amazing leadership qualities and bewitching class. In their heads they always pictured her shouting at them with a dismissive whip of her majestic pigtails of pure platinum grace and her emerald eyes looking down on them with an aura of contempt. A woman that was truly the cream of the crop. If only she weren't such a workaholic.

"We are _around_ the clock, you mean.."

Charles mumbled mostly to himself as he glimpsed away, posture at attention and forearms reserved behind his sleek build as always. No mutinous intent was going to slip from this man's honed discipline. The meek baldy on the other hand couldn't help but draw his brows together.

"Boss can't we call it a day? It's already 8 p.m. and we've been short of breath since morn—"

"Balance sheets! CHOP CHOP!"

Before those uncompromising green eyes they felt themselves shrinking, and with them, all the little courage they had to voice a grumble.

"Yes boss..."

 _[...]_

Even when the pair had their work done Alice would keep them around to assist her in finishing her own assignments. Well, she'd keep them _behind_ actually. Their job was to stand on each side and hand her important paperwork so she wouldn't have to cause further unnecessary upheaval on her desk. At first Renton and Charles believed this to be a form of unconventional enterprise culture stemming from Alice's own eccentric nature, yet over the years they grew used to it while realizing the significance of their seemingly tedious task.

Having her two trusted bodyguards at her side helped Alice go the extra mile she needed, a mile that was crucial for Funland. In times like this one could truly marvel at what made Alice the leader she was. Her tenacity and cold-blooded focus, never letting herself buckle even under extreme stress. That was Funland's CEO.

 _[...]_

After half an hour or so she finally sighed in relief, following her example the two men silently exhaled the stale air as well. Judging from her pace she seemed to be wrapping up, so Charles decided to tend an eye when she suddenly seemed skeptic over some details. Normally he wouldn't even think about peeping inside his boss' work, she'd immediately feel the prying eyes and throw a fit at them. But hell, they were almost done, taking a gander after the worst was over wouldn't cause the second coming. If anything he was just concerned at what troubled her.

Charles' eyes widened as he discerned the context of the paper she was musing over. _Payrolls._ He discreetly cast an eye to assess whether Renton had caught wind of it, but.. God damn, Charles mentally facepalmed when he remembered Renton was about an inch taller than the desk. He faced straight again, this time with newfound commitment. _Yeah, it was all up to him. This was his one chance to discover whether bonuses had been added in the next month's wages. Regrettably however, he was a moment too late in realizing Alice had stopped tapping her pen._

"Are you curious, Charles?"

The corner of her lip curled knowingly to a smile full of malicious leverage.

Her assistant had been caught in the act. A foreboding chill shot up his spine as Charles flinched and jerked back to place.

"No that's.. I mean..!" With a hand now barricading his mouth it was clear as day he was fumbling for words. "Boss I believe we got our wires crossed there, I didn't—!"

Next thing he knew Alice spun in her leather seat, arms already fastened on her chest and soon crossing one leg over the other to initiate the prosecution.

"You know, I think you're right worrying so much about the payrolls, they look quite inefficient."

Charles took notice at how Alice's elevated leg had begun to bob up and down dangerously, at the same time struggling to shake off the thought how seductive the subtle movements of her long elven legs were. He was digging his own grave there, and what's worse is that he knew he was playing right into her ruse like a simpleton yet couldn't help it.

"So I'll just scratch a digit from this month's wages and everything will be fine!"

Alice wore an exhilarating smile, case solved.

"Boss, a cut?" Pale color plagued Charles' expression, Alice had touched a sensitive chord there, "But that means I'd have to start buying my suits from discounts _—_ _..._ _like Renton does._ "

His rolled eye could just _not_ unscrew from that cheap purple vest, _how utterly... unfashionable_. _Had he scavenged that thing at the down-market or something?_

 _"For real Charles, again..?"_

Renton who was watching from the sidelines prepared his eardrums, he knew well this was just the calm before the storm. In a bat of the lid the silver haired CEO leapt from her chair and was up in arms.

"How many times have I told you it's really annoying when you poke your nose where it doesn't belong! Do you realize I feel like I have spies breathing down my neck!"

Charles was in a pickle, especially with a sharp manicured finger pointing right below his face. _The only crossed wire here is the one that's going around your neck,_ that's what that finger meant. However the accused held his chin high upon hearing the last part.

"I'd never spy the boss." Charles released one of his hands to brush the strands of hair hovering without permission on his forehead. Eventually his hand stopped halfway through to address her with the edge of his eye. "You are too beautiful for me to venture such a lowly act."

He fixed his tie with tactful care, then returned to attention.

Renton was shamefully shaking his head, Alice had cringed; not in the good sense. She was wincing awkwardly and her expression was so blue and gloomy one could swear she was sick.

"Dear god.." Her tone was shaky and reluctant, as if some arctic frost had swallowed the room's temperature, "Why did I even ask?"

"Hey, do you hear that?" Renton turned over his shoulder, a brow cocking visibly above the opaque round sunglasses, "Is that the elevator coming up?"

They all fell to an extended pause with Renton and Charles exchanging uncertain stares. Silence was drawing yet again to awkward proportions, much to Alice's quiet wrath that was building up as nobody's tongue seemed to get loose.

"So? Who the heck fell behind schedule today?"

Arms latched at her waist, a heel tapping with abundant petulance as she awaited for the spilled beans.

"I'm sure all our employees have finished their shifts."

Charles seemed to grow cautious, facts were leaving little to nothing for questioning.

"Maybe the janitor?"

The short man suggested with a vague gesture.

"Don't be an idiot Renton." Insulted about Alice's eyes averted shut. "Like I'd allow a janitor lay their hands on an executive's office. This place is too valuable for maintenance to be any less than fastidious, hence I personally—"

"Hey!"

They were so absorbed in Alice's incessant rambling that no one picked up the footsteps behind them.

"Sorry I'm visiting so late, I was lucky the door was still unlocked so.."

The familiar friendly voice popped Alice's bubble who now stared blankly in front of her. She felt her ears were going to flap.

 _"..Jack?"_

.

.

* * *

 _03.12.16_

 _End of CH.1_

 _P.S: Don't forget to drop a review! Share your opinion with me, it always keeps a writer going!_ _~TBC_


	2. In enemy territory

**_A/N_** _: After a quick revision I decided to break down the intro chapter in two parts as it gave me the impression of it being an uncomfortably lengthy format. On that note the story will probably take a quite greater extent than I had originally planned._

 ** _Rating:_** _T_

 ** _Disclaimer:_** _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

 ** _Chapter 2. In enemy territory_**

.

.

"Hey Jack!"

Renton immediately greeted the boy with a meek smile. Of all the villagers in Leaf Valley that young lad had to be the most genial. Even in the beginning when everyone in the village eyed them askance because of Funland, Jack wouldn't hesitate catching up with Renton to drop a _hi_. Renton was certain his unbiased manners had to do with Jack not being raised in this community, he really did have a different air about him. A refreshing air.

"Jack.." The taller man marched forward, his pace slow and alarming, "Do you know what time it is?"

He locked onto the boy with unwelcoming eyes.

Despite Charles' ever belligerent approach the farm boy refused to harbor resentment. At a first glance Charles indeed appeared to be an obnoxious narcissist that kept a habit of repelling everyone but the elite, but that gradually seemed to change over time.

"Yeah, time sure flies in the mines." The brown haired boy allowed a guilty smile, "I can't believe it was already this late when I got out."

"Hey Charles." Alice interrupted, her interest on a word that randomly sprang, "Did that Rudolph turn in today's bulk?"

"Uh, I think today he was under Renton's supervision."

"Eh, what?" The little man indulged in disbelief, "No, he was on my watch yesterday. We've agreed to take turns with his reports. Charles tell her!"

"Oh shut up Renton!" Alice haughtily snapped at him, "We know whenever someone drops the ball it's _you._ Seriously, how can you mess up every time!"

Jack's shoulders shrugged in his endeavor to curb a spontaneous chuckle, him alone witnessing Charles' expression was priceless. The culprit was slipping elaborate glances here and there trying to avoid eye contact with anyone. Guilty was drawn all over his face. The young farmer did feel bad about Renton's hardships, but pointing fingers inside Funland was, simply put, not a farmer's job.

"Well.. Rudolph was great help today. He really knows his way around the tunnels."

Jack decided to stay typical and brief on the matter. Business gossip here wasn't really in his best interests.

"Hey.." Charles leaned over and whispered to Jack's ear, taking advantage of the verbal brawl Alice still had going with Renton. "Found anything.. You know.. _Rare?_ "

The boy blinked in the beginning, his question was kind of sudden, but not a moment later he assured with a friendly nod as he reached for his rucksack.

"Charles.." Jack's voice was less cheerful than usual which surprised Alice's trusted man, "You.. you're not going to make more crazy robots.. Right?"

The brown haired boy offered the staff member a rare _smile_. A smile that was drained of joy, but at the same time one that was not going to abandon the perseverance to trust. Deep down Jack knew he was going to be betrayed, time and time again, but there was one thing he wished more than anything. _To believe in people, no matter who they are or what they do._

That was the first time Charles' ego received a small crack, a crack not even close to make him have a change of heart, but it was something he definitely felt. Of course he was going to make robots, and of course he was going to sugarcoat things to earn Jack's approval. Still, deceiving the boy was not among his intentions, but it was something necessary to further Funland's goal.

"You have my word." Agreeing to a promise he wasn't going to keep he yielded an arm to receive what Jack got out of his rucksack. _"Holy.."_ His eyeballs almost protruded upon gazing the ore resting in his palm. _"This kind of metal.. I can definitely..—!"_

In an instant the stone had been snatched from his grasp, Alice was wearing a smug smirk as she rhythmically played the valuable ore in her hand.

"Err, boss? Why did you _—_ "

"Consider this compensation for being nosy Charles. And I'm letting you off the hook easily this time."

Something about her tone warned him that she had figured out the Rudolph thing, so the best route to take was to simply comply and keep quiet. Today was just not his day.

"Now, onto things that actually matter."

Alice flounced towards the front side of her desk and leaned her hips on the glazed surface, one leg sliding over the other with a precise delicacy as she finally got ready for her guest.

"So Jack, what business do you have with me?" She attended the weary boy with mild intrigue, "Finally decided to surrender your little farm to Funland?"

Lightly shoving hands between her thighs the executive was eager to hear what might be the words of submission she's patiently waited one year for.

"Um.." The farmer rubbed the back of his head as an innocent frown grew on him. _That girl sure knew how to start a conversation_ , now he was ambivalent whether his next words might find him flying from the 2nd floor, "Well.. not quite."

Alice pouted at Jack crossing a renegade smirk. Once again her fingers started ticking back and forth as she actually allowed him room to finish the sentence that was a deadlock per se. Normally she'd have already kicked him out, but over the months she had come to give some credit to this kid's moxie. Suddenly finding himself in a foreign environment with not a dime to his name, yet here he was, standing tall with unwavering mettle, ready to fight to the bitter end.

.

.

She still remembers the first time she met him outside his joke of a farm, and what a big impression Jack did _not_ make on her. A quick scan on his clothes had given her an urge to snort; Light blue pants tucked into chestnut-colored farmer boots and a sleeveless white shirt with suspenders, so glaringly discolored and tattered they must have been inside the washing machine a thousand times. If it weren't for his bothersome enthusiasm she'd have sworn it was an old-timer. Yeah, someone had probably passed those rags on to him, because there were some other details that spoke of a different story.

Like his gloves for instance. Not that she would even care to admit, but there was some peculiar taste about them. " _Spandex gloves?"_ , her brow almost furrowed back then, lingering on the red and black lining followed by a paw-like pattern on the wrist strap. He also wore a crimson scarf around his neck that gathered down on his chest, since the button placket was torn and patched.

Then there was his cap. He was wearing it backwards with two long brown strands hanging on each side of his face. However the most amusing part was that one other strand in between hung upwards. _"It sticks out too much. How in the world did he do that?"_

 _In the end, perhaps he did make an impression on her._

.

.

"If you aren't here to give up your farm what could you possibly want? It's past 10 p.m. already."

The CEO nervously grabbed on each side of the desk, her ungiving eyes fixed on Jack's resolute ones as if she had marked a countdown.

Tension could only swell between the two as seconds went idly by, Alice staring with growing madness at Jack and him not returning the ill favor. Eventually reaching for his rucksack Jack got what seemed like _a_ _package?_ _—A_ _nd hopefully inside it the farm's ownership titles?_ _—_ She entertained the thought _._ The boy now stood in front of the pompous executive.

"I just.. Wanted to give you this."

Upon closer inspection Alice realized it was not just a package. It was a package with a blue wrapping surface and a cross silver ribbon. The CEO was unable to reserve a light gasp.

"Today is the 5th, right?" Jack tittered between them.

Alice's challenging facade had disappeared as if it was never there. Clinging onto the gift she tried to obscure downcast eyes.. and the ghost of a smile.

"Yeah.. today is.. the 5th.." She erratically repeated his words, still unable to comprehend if this was real.

"BOSS!"

"Boss today is your _—!_ "

"Shut your mouths!" She lashed out at her two assistants, "Now get lost! We're done for today!"

The two associates took flight like they had a bounty on their heads, at the drop of a hat they were already inside the elevator,

 _"Shit Renton how did you forget today was the day?"_

 _"It's my fault again? You're the one all over her so why do I have to...—"_

 _[...]_

The ensuing silence that befell the room was eerie, plenty to make Jack's round eyes shiver as they stayed on Alice, who had turned to stone clinging the gift against her chest. At first she seemed happy, the next moment she was livid. _What did he do wrong?_

"You did this to get even with me.. Right Jack?" Her tone was unnaturally faint, Jack could tell that an inexplicable irritation was surging beneath her collected voice. "You did this to get revenge for what I've been doing to you..."

There was an uncomfortable pause between them, but then Jack gave a late recoil.

"Huh?" He scratched the back of his head, eyes turned to oblivious dashes.

"DON'T _'HUH'_ ME!"

The shout made Jack sway like a helpless sprout blown by a merciless gust of wind. Alice's smoldering glare was ready to pounce on him, monitoring every sequence of the farmer still digging at his head, indolently, like a moron. He didn't seem willing to concede his foul play, forcing Alice to bend her tongue against the palate of her mouth as she prepared to lay it out for him.

"Defeating our robot tree today was not enough for you, was it Jack? So you decided to come and embarrass me in front of my co-workers by making me look weak!"

Alice did not hold back smiting him with her eyes. This really important day was supposed to be celebrated with the robot tree's roaring success, but instead it was concluded with an underwhelming fiasco on their part, leading to Alice losing face.. Especially since it was in front of _him.._ Jack had obviously seized this opportunity to slap her in the face with a good laugh. Bearing the intent to humiliate her was the only logical deduction.

" _That.. That jerk!"  
_

On that reflection the girl slightly contained herself, taking note how Jack's expression had returned, with a downhearted color on parted lips.

 _"So.. that's what it was..."_

He took a moment to let everything sink in, but all he could find was the most bitter of tastes in his mouth. With his focus abstract and away from Alice the boy crossed both hands behind his head as he relaxed a knee's joint.

"I'm sorry Alice, I'm not smart enough to think that much ahead. But even if I could I think I'd come to hate myself for thinking that way."

Soon to haul his feet back the farmer brought himself before the CEO again, who had mellowed to a distrustful pout. Still, no answer was gonna come from her. The idea of her response timing out indefinitely finally started to grow on Jack, _but_ _at the eleventh hour_.. Eyes instinctively fled sideways to the floor.

"..I thought that just because we've got our differences when it comes to business doesn't have to mean I shouldn't treat you as a person.. That's all.."

Unfortunately nothing could tell him that a dim shimmer in Alice's hollow stare was registering his every word. He could only hear the girl stifling a _sniff_.

"I'm really sorry I embarrassed you.." Hands clenched to fists as he whipped around and headed for the elevator.

Squeezing her lashes shut as if she were trying to digest her pride Alice decided to give it a go, but only to hear the elevator's sliding door. The moment she spared an eye on Jack as he turned around inside the platform she peered onto something that made any parting word she'd prepare for him crawl back inside her throat.. _The hurting smile Jack was enduring for her sake, even now..._

"Happy birthday, Alice.."

 _[...]_

 _That was one big blunder_ , she thought. For someone like the head of the Funland company to not be able to muster a few words to a mere farmer boy, it was a blunder. Alice was still clinging tightly onto the birthday gift Jack gave her. What was she supposed to say to him though? That it was the first time someone remembered her birthday since she moved here, let alone receiving a gift? Or how the things she said about the robot tree made up only _half_ of what really happened?... Staring absently at the package in her arms she found herself wondering why she saw Jack's motives in such a dark light in the first place.

 _"I think I'd come to hate myself for thinking that way."_

Why did his unvarnished and naive logic have such an impact on her? Murky questions were flooding one after the other as her eyes were always anchored on her gift.

 _"Business doesn't have to mean I shouldn't treat you as a person.."_

And then her still gaze was clouding up again. For Alice, who had always known how to fight and subjugate others, she had found one opponent there was no effective weapon against. How were you supposed to fight honesty and kindness? _...Jack's tender smile came to mind._

 _"Shit..!" Alice clenched her teeth, her gift was getting wet from small droplets. "Shit.. Shit..!"_

 _[...]_

Not a moment after Jack stepped out of the building he had already found himself in yet another predicament.

"Aww are you kidding me? At a time like this?" He was demanding for a complaint form.

In one hand he held his hat, the other was a raised palm. It seemed like it was gonna turn into a bad downpour.

"Oh man!" He yelped in panic, a howling gale had almost drifted his hat along. Jack was fine with getting soaked to the bone, but his hat was a heirloom he couldn't afford to lose.

"It's so cold too!"

A whimper seeking vain comfort clambered its way out while embracing naked arms for warmth, the shivery goosebumps already creeping on his skin. Spring may have arrived on the calendar, yet winter's callous whispers wouldn't go away without a fight.

"I should've bought a raincoat but after fixing the house I don't have a penny." The farmer joked to himself, but even he realized the joke was a bit too much on him.

Thankfully the sudden storm seemed to be just passing by as the wind was already starting to let up, eventually leaving only the serene rain in its place. Unable to do anything but accept the situation he was in, Jack found himself looking up to the dark sky. Everything was abyssal, except from the raindrops that took shape because of Funland's lights. The sensation of the spring rain actually had something the beautiful about it, like an unsung lullaby cleansing his soul. Getting sick didn't bother him at all, ever since walking out of that door only one thought was on the back of his mind.

"I never thought I'd make her cry..." Staring down expressionless as the rain created ripples around him Jack resorted to clinching on his scarf, "My chest.. hurts.."

"Damn right it should!"

Twisting a foot to the side Jack's incredulous pupils separated a silhouette that was stealthed a few feet back. Very soon he was feeling the weight of those judging emerald eyes again. She still looked mighty pissed at him, not that he'd have expected it any other way. Alice was probably steaming that he was still on her doorstep, using her rooftop as shelter from the rain.

It was the first time Alice actually saw Jack not wearing his hat, he looked so different without it. Unkempt strands of spiky brown hair laid backwards on his head and the rain made them look slick. Yet he still looked kind of.. _naked_. However what gathered her attention was the evident apprehension in the way Jack was half-staring at her, like he really wanted to shy away from more trouble.

"I'm sorry." He quickly tossed his cap on wet hair, then a boot splashed in the muddy waters as he darted the other way, "I'll leave right n _—_ "

The boy's heart gave a pound so fearful that he couldn't even come to budge an eye. Alice had arrested him at the wrist.

"Jack.. Can you stay for a minute?"

.

.

* * *

 _07.12.16_

 _End of CH.2_

 _P.S: Don't forget to drop a review! Share your opinion with me, it always keeps a writer going!_ _~TBC_


	3. What lies ahead

**_A/N_** _: Thanks for the reviews everyone! It makes me really happy to see there are still a few people out there reading HoLV fics!_

 ** _Rating:_** _T_

 ** _Disclaimer:_** _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

 ** _Chapter 3. What lies ahead_**

.

.

There wasn't the need for an educated guess to help Alice see through a few elementary facts; bottom line being she had already given Jack plenty of reason to nurture daunting second thoughts if he ever considered paying Funland a visit again. Beneath the silky touch of her pen-pampered fingers she could feel Jack's tendon swell quietly in a display of self-inflicting restraint, however though he may be modestly abstaining from the not so absurd concept of engaging her verbally, she was well aware that her intention to stop him had to feel like a sickening cuff on him as things turned out.

"It won't take long." With somewhere in her mind hoping he'd not run away like an abused animal as soon as she undid her leash on him she decided to acquit the boy from her clutch, "So hear me out so we can both go home."

The humid air Jack breathed deeply inside came out as a heavy moist cloud, yet not even close to a moment's respite. The farmer's eyes were soon half-lidded, almost with a distant muttering about them. Because even though the yard's stairs may be just in front of him, he was still at the CEO's dead end.

"It's really coming down.." As if he had just resolved himself to bite that bullet Jack heaved a reticent eye towards his shoulder, "Are you sure it's okay to.. _—_ "

However the next thing he met earned him a steep silence, only his boots hesitantly unplunged from the mud to bring a slow turnaround. He couldn't see her well in the dark a moment ago, but now it was clear to him that Alice stood in the rain without any extra clothes to cover her skin. It was apparent she had rushed all the way out here on a pressing whim, _but why?_ In that naive but genuine concern woven in his eyes Alice found the opening she needed to get a head start on him.

"You might have already heard rumors, but construction is set to commence by the end of fall."

Allowing a brief moment to ascertain her words found target Alice went on.

"Do yourself a favor and pack your bags while you still have the time. Leaf Valley is finished Jack, it's time to move on."

There was something curious about the way Alice kept her arms in a fold, almost with vibes of anxiety.

 _"End of fall, huh?"_

Gloved knuckles tightened till they were squeezing a creak, his back against a wall in motion, yet despite the dire straits he was in Jack's lips were able to grab on an empty smirk.

"That's still plenty of time, I'm sure I'll find a way around it." Once again the farmer set himself for the long trip back home, "You should get back inside Alice, you'll catch a cold if you stay out too long."

Like that Alice was left behind with a sour sulk hanging, or rather, persisting. _How.. How condescending!_ After all the things she said to him he still had the grit to look out for her well being? Yeah, that was the one reason Alice feared to admit she was cultivating an obsession for Jack that ran deep. It must've been all those victories against her robots that gave him a subtle air of superiority, an edge she could not allow him to carry around for granted.

"Stop chasing rainbows Jack!"

With her hands in a stew she triggered a vicious march after the farmer's ignorant tail, but with the rain coming down in buckets Jack's form gradually appeared to dissolve into the thickness of the wilderness.

"There's nothing you can do to save the village! Everyone will have to _—_ Kyaaaa _~!"_

Reckless as she was trying to follow him outside in these unfavorable conditions, Alice's high heel took a rather ungraceful skid on the marbled tiles that were ironically supposed to serve as a safe pathway to the company's entrance. In this sudden mess where her own actions had literally cut the ground from under her feet the CEO found herself swerving in a flurry of acrobatics to regain any speck of balance.

 _"N-No way is this happening to me!"_

The more she fought her body's initial momentum the more she drew closer to the edge of the tiles. _It was all for naught, now she was just flailing._ Expelling an eye to its corner she was greeted by the lovely embrace of a mud puddle.

 _"Noooo! Anything but that!"._

The floodgates of her eyes were already endowed with watery orbs, only herself knew what a fortune her outfit cost. This was a disaster with no precedent.

 _"..Curse you.."_ Alice inwardly muttered, in her mind's eye only his defiant back turning away from her, "CURSE YOU!"

This time with a resounding spiteful scream _. The tip of her heel slipped over the edge. It was over._ When Alice closed her eyes time felt slowing down in more than fractions, she'd have never guessed there would be a crisis in her life where she'd be in desperate need for happy thoughts.. just to forget what was about to come..

Her lips parted with wonder at the first image that easily came out on top of every other experience she's had.

 _Renton and Charles were fighting over the robot tree's remote, causing it to malfunction and disengage prematurely. By the time Alice realized she stood right in the middle of its collapse course it was already late for prayers.. She could only bring hands over her mouth and shrivel in overwhelming terror as her masterpiece towered over her, mere moments away from reducing her to a pulp beneath its crushing weight. But then..._

 _A soothing smile settled on her lips reminiscing this little adventure. With her lashes parting ever slightly Alice could still see the vivid image of Jack holding her down after selflessly throwing himself in the robot tree's path to save her. She really liked his eyes back then. Those were the eyes of someone who put everything on the line, burning with embers of a conviction to a cause known only to him. Yeah, that was a nice feeling, it was something she could live with forever, if only she hadn't pushed him away.. He said something back then, what was it..?_

"You look quite happy for someone about to drop in the mud."

 _"...!?"_ _How rude!_ Alice awoke from her fuzzy stupor with a grouchy blink, _"H-Hey what is going on..!"_

With her screen adjusting to reality once more she was introduced to quite a tango corte; an arm was clasped around her waist for a secure grip and another holding her own hand in captivity.

"A-Aah...!" Hardly disposed to utter some inarticulate vowels as everything shot back in her head the CEO reflexively clamped around Jack's shoulder blades like a bear trap. "P-Pull me up already!"

She certainly wasn't having the high ground here for demands on top of Jack's charity, yet the rescuer had long relinquished suggesting any tradeoff with a side-glance. With her heart skipping beats in turmoiled seas her face flushed the brightest red when Jack started putting dominant pressure against her slim midsection, carefully providing the CEO leverage till her feet could grasp solid ground again.

In hindsight Jack's arms spread open to declare a truce as he reached the safe vertical angle, "Hey I'm not touching you anymore, so no need to scream again."

 _"...Well how precautious of you..!"_

Alice had easily failed to tame the scandalized hiss that poured through her teeth, then once again growing all the more flustered when she mentally described the situation as _a lack of intimacy_ on Jack's end. The glimpse of a thought alone caused the CEO to bury her face inside the farmer's scarf, she was not going to give him the pleasure of beholding _that one_. Indeed, _her fever,_ as Charles would say, was actually an inconvenience happening all too often nowadays.

"You are wrong, you know.." The boy advanced, not really minding that she still refused to unclinch from him, "I don't care if it breaks my body or my soul.. I'll definitely make sure the village pulls through all this."

The very moment he spat those words Alice's binds came to loosen on him, an implacable temper steadily assumed its place on her features instead. With an upwards stare to meet his height she was dead set in tackling this unnerving will of his.. yet despite the rainfall not relenting for a second its cascade through Jack's face, his eyes were more stagnant than ever, not backing off one step from what he stood for.

"You are really.. getting under my skin." A rising omen in Alice's overcast mindset connected with a rumble from the pouring skies.

Resigning to a sigh the farmer spun in the other direction and shrugged in a manner confessing he had no medicine for that.

"That's usually your cue but, I think that's enough for today. I'm going ho _— Wha-a!_ "

"Like _hell_ you are!" With a violent latch on his unaware hand the CEO was towing the farmer towards the premises again.

"H-Hey what's the big idea! Where are you _—"_

"Shut it!"

Holy cows that was one round-two the farmer did not see coming; on the flip side, _what a hell of a grip she had._ For a suit spending about all her hours in an office she definitely had some latent skill there, Jack couldn't help but relate to helpless prey getting dragged into a tiger's den. With an acquired Alice tidbit aside, this back and forth stalemate was getting ridiculous, now it seemed like she was just making excuses to let off some steam. Jack was aware he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but he wasn't her plaything either.

"Come on Alice give it a rest already! There's still stuff I need to do before bed. I haven't fed Max and..." Jack's engine stalled there for a bit, something feeling strangely amiss, but sooner than he would have hoped his pupils began to shrink, "Aww man! He'll go sniffing around the chickens again! Alice you have to let me _—_ "

"Who cares about your mutt! We've got more pressing _matters_ here."

 _"M-mutt..?"_ Jack's heart cracked a little, maybe a lot..

Yeah, truth is Max was actually one of the strays he found around the village and eventually picked up, but still, he was a decent dog.. Even so, the farmer was suddenly standing on the podium of a lightless courtroom, and not for a standing ovation. He was surrounded by myriads of harsh reprimanding eyes piercing right through him like incrimination needles. _Mutt...Mutt...Mutt,_ they were all chanting it together like a choir-in-purgatory.

Having Jack down with the blues in some obviously ridiculous self-reflection of his was exactly what Alice needed. That had killed any resistance he was putting up before so it made her work all the more easier. Approaching closer to the door however the CEO was almost startled upon noticing the pesky camera monitor that was still groping around, _"Right, forgot to turn it off."_ That was no good, she could not risk getting caught in the feed with Jack late as close to midnight, it would arouse suspicions the next day. _Charles would suggest Jack be sued for making her beautiful face so uptight and Renton would probably be holed up at some corner chortling like he knew something..._ The latter sparked a displeased scowl on her.

However hers was a mind of resources, not even slowing down she swiftly veered to her left, there was still another place available.

Still brooding over it like an anvil was sitting on his neck Jack's eye caught what looked like the end of tire tracks passing under him, and some heavy tires at that. Pulling up the sinkers on his face he took a wide picture of what was ahead. Alice was taking them around the perimeter for some reason, there were a lot of trees in this part of the establishment, but then.. _A large reinforced garage door, the tracks cutting off where it met the ground._

 _"W-Wait a sec isn't this where the robots come out from!?" Jack's lips turned precarious, if not sinusoidal.._

There was one time during the first year when he visited Alice's office to try and negotiate the 50,000G price she had put on the deed, which of course ended with Alice bursting into fits of teary laughter when Jack suggested 5,000G... _in installments_. But that day he also accidentally caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a portion of the garage through the office's panoramic glass walls. And oh boy, had that curiosity of his jogged a bad memory... If his mind wasn't playing tricks on him, there was something down there that looked like a mean shredder. Everything that went inside the rows of blades just disappeared into dust.

Jack swallowed a hard lump in his throat when a wild figment of his imagination compelled a scenario with the farmer ending up as fertilizer for Alice's yard. _"Man I gotta stop watching that channel at night, it's really getting to me..."_

Any vain hopes Jack secretly treasured for the door not to work were washed away when Alice pressed something in her brooch. With the steel door now rolling up the boy was more on the brink than ever. Though being the kind of person that always wears the heart on a sleeve his mouth couldn't stay clammed, for better or worse..

"U-Uh Alice..?" The farmer gave a half-hearted kick start, a disinclination that did not pass undetected from the CEO's sensors, "Well I.. You're not planning to kill me or anything, right..?"

Initially that had brought out a stupefying stillness, Alice looked absolutely benumbed as she processed her chartreuse emeralds on the farmer. On the other hand Jack had withdrawn himself to the side with an emergency to avoid the answer about to decorate Alice's expression.

"Oh Jack..!"

She leapt dangerously close to the boy, soon holding their hands between them in unison as she nudged her weight against his. Staring deeply into the unguardedness of his eyes a faint red tint found her charmed cheeks.

"That's the most wonderful idea you've ever had!"

When the door achieved the characteristic bump Alice's lashes dipped to an impassive middle.

"After _you._ "

.

.

* * *

 _16.12.16_

 _End of CH.3_

 _P.S: Don't forget to drop a review! Share your opinion with me, it always keeps a writer going!_ _~TBC_


	4. The boy that came from afar

**_A/N_** _: Once again thanks for the feedback dear readers! Hope you're having fun with the story so far!_

 ** _Rating:_** _T_

 ** _Disclaimer:_** _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

 ** _Chapter 4. The boy that came from afar_**

.

.

With a flick of her finger on a panel switch the corresponding selected lights started to blink, the fluorescent-tube lamps slowly warming up from their slumber. When the room suddenly flashed a brightness akin to daylight the farmer's arm jerked overhead to shield the night dilated pupils, now narrowed to slits. She couldn't have dragged him in here to crisp his retina now, could she? Bethinking of it, having the farmer wander aimlessly around the village stumbling on every rock would certainly not put it past her mischiefs. Much like the executive's uncanny mind what awaited him soon thereafter was truly imposing, Jack's eyes finally unflinching from the dazzling show.

"Pretty good right?" A daring smile appealed to Alice as her gaze shot far across the depths of the facility, the indisputable fruits of Funland's hard work laying lavishly before her. "Makes your head spin kinda."

With covert expertise the CEO sneaked a peek under Jack's nose, maybe just _a bit_ on the edge of her seat to watch the farmer's jaw popping back to place.

 _Yeah, there was no dodging that bullet either_. Jack responded with a few wary steps inside the immediate area. Heck, knowing Alice's tendency for up to no good it was not even a tiny bit of a stretch to think that a bunch of robots were lurking around the corners, ready to jump at him any second. Raising a proactive pulse Jack's eyes were closely patrolling for anything _funny_ , however once he stepped inside something like an invisible layer the farmer was brought to a standstill. With a light sniff the peculiar air playing around Jack's nostrils went inside... His lids immersed, to a cogitative low...

.

 _It had been quite a long time since he last let in those exiled scents, not that he woke up one day and they were suddenly missing from his new life, but still, they were things from the not so distant past. The smell of recently welded metal, the residual acidity of drying silicone, faint remnants of worn rubber, all sorts of industrial smells one could find about everywhere beyond Leaf Valley. When was it though...? When was it that he looked the other way? At what point in his new journey did those sensations that followed his every second fade to a blur of bygone days? Not long after he could even settle here they had already been replaced by things like the sweet scent of blossoming flowers, the morning dew of the meadows, the thin air of the mountains. It was almost scary how nature's untarnished stream breathed away all those marks he carried with him._

 _._

Parting with his thoughts the farmer was now a bit more receptive in studying his nearby surroundings, not even himself sure why. He had already figured that much, but the garage was actually a huge workshop, meant to engineer, assemble, deploy. There was basically everything from a single screw driver to a complete tool kit, or a mid-sized ramp to a whole theme park project more sturdy looking than his own house. Several storage racks, dozens of stuffed cardboard boxes, even more tool panels occupying almost an entire wall. Soldering gadgets and equipment of all sorts were scattered here and there, then there were even a couple of workbenches buried under clusters of blueprints and electronic pieces. No need to say, they were really on a mission here.

"See Jack, during our investigation on the village something came to our attention."

Upon the suggestive remark the farmer's eye lodged to a standby corner, the echoing sound of Alice's heels forewarning her approaching proximity.

"You were originally from the city."

She perceived the farmer's keen silence as an affirmation.

"Flower Bud, was it?"

Eventually with the CEO walking next to him.

The young boy regarded her with a backward something about it, like he was having a really hard time connecting the dots. Were they really running background checks on the village? Well, the suits _did_ introduce themselves as a pretty thorough team from day one, but how did that fall in line with anything? "Yeah but.. I'm just not sure where you're getting at."

"Jack!"

The silver haired executive popped in front of the boy, posture banked with an ardent opportunity in her eyes.

"That means you're not a country bumpkin! You've been _out there,_ you've _seen_ how technology contributes _,_ so you _understand_ how important our work is!"

The misgiving glance the farmer budged down only rattled the urgency inside the CEO to open his eyes.

"We're trying to make progress here, don't you think it'd be best for everyone if we made this a better place?"

Alice dismissed her inquiring arm, the question rhetoric.

"Right now Leaf Valley is set on the path to extinction, it's a barren economy forsaken by god, however once we're open for business hundreds _maybe thousands_ of people will be lining up all over the country to get here."

Her whole body jetted forward to grasp this prospect, for Alice this was like a revolution.

"I know you see the potential in this right? I mean you're _—_ "

"Alice..."

For a while now the farmer had joined arms on the backside of his head to try and convince himself to listen to her ambitions without interruptions. If Jack was dead certain about one thing in Leaf Valley it was that god had not abandoned them. The _Harvest Goddess_ was watching over them, quietly nourishing the land while also helping the few folk here lighten their burdens. Not that she would ever believe in such a miracle. However the truly embittering part was that Alice kept missing the forest for the trees. The only reason Leaf Valley was threatened did not so much involve money, underpopulation, or even theme parks.

"...Why are you looking at me like that?"

The emerald eyes coerced an ire upon sussing out a shred of empathy hidden on Jack's face, yet unable to decipher it.

"You know.."

Jack found an all but comfortable distance at the floor, not sure whether he should share his own sentiments with her. It'd probably be no good, but he had to give it a shot.

"Parsley, Ronald, Chester, Aurelia, they're not from here either.. Even if Leaf Valley were to shut down, they still have a home to go back to. But even so they're all trying their hardest to find a way to save the village."

Shutting his eyes as he mustered for what seemed like an intangible hope Jack readdressed the CEO, a rekindled vigor in his stand.

"Why do you think they're fighting for this place?"

Alice crossed her arms with a tapping finger in charge of spending her disinterest. She had already guessed there'd probably be a few more fools trying to shake up her plans, _so what?_ They were all setting themselves up for disappointment anyway. In the end all that mattered was the one causing her trouble, whom she now stared with a sidelong irritation.

"Hmph.." Her lips slanted towards a scoff, "Losers don't know when to lose, I guess.. _—!_ "

Before she could fully part her lashes Jack had grabbed her pretentious arm, his eyes boring into hers like sizzling nails. Not a single heated encounter in her life held a candle to Jack's wolf-like fangs that were fighting against their god-given nature. She had pushed the farmer at his wit's end.

 _"That's right.. I insulted those peasant friends of yours.. Now I can finally see what hides beneath that saint smile you always wear. Go on.. Hit me.. Under that shed skin you're just another_ — _..."_

 _She was caught off guard when the quavering grip on her wrist gradually started to loosen, not long before her arm was allowed to return to her. Twisting her eyes with trembling retaliation back at the farmer she saw no anger or blame, but something far more formidable... A deep, sorrowful pity, reaching down to the bottom of her soul... Here she was, trying her worst with that audacious display to provoke him, yet Jack already knew that what lied beyond this sparkling gem's facet was a cornered and scared human being, cursing and wallowing in their own selfishness._

 _"Because I'm a woman... Is that what you think?"_

 _Jack's hat bounced off his head from the sheer force behind the slap, its sound pouring evenly along the vast corridors. With his head lurched where the slap left him the farmer could only redeem himself staring down at his hat._

"...It's because you're trying to take their _happiness_ away..."

Negotiations were as much on the table as a shipwreck at this point, with nothing else for him here Jack crouched on his knees to pick his belongings. The irk οn the CEO's temple however spelled the tale of how she had not had her fill yet. He wasn't getting away with just _this_ much. _Prostrating himself before her feet, begging for forgiveness all whilst crying till his eyes were dry_ _involved the only way he was leaving through that door_.

"Their happiness, huh..?"

Again her lips reached for an urge at sarcasm, they were awfully right when they said revenge gets served on a cold plate.

"Then what is _this_ , Jack?" Alice brought something out of her sash, "Is this _how_ you're going to protect that happiness?"

For the implication of her question alone the farmer forced dismayed eyes over the length of his shoulder. There was an ore inside her palm, though not finding anything particular to say Jack had voicelessly thrown the ball back to the CEO's court with an upside glance.

"It looks like you think you're gazing at yet another junk metal, so let me spill it for you. This is a rare metal compound we use as a key synthetic in our robots, and _you.._ "

The frame of her eye tapered with a triumphant glee,

"You just waltzed into my office and delivered it straight to _Charles,_ of all people."

She was dying to bear witness as his regretful mistake took flesh and blood in his expression, but... _Jack smiled back at her._

"...Why did you take it from him then?"

...And who would've known she'd be the one doing the awkward expression instead? With her eyes in jitters the CEO discovered the need to seclude an arm under her breasts as she fumbled for a half-baked elaboration.

"I-I just didn't want your help.. Yes, I don't want Funland's reputation sullied by the likes of..." _...Wait_

Alice put her heartbeat on the shelf for a second, a hunch one may've called it, but there was something not right about the way Jack was keeping his cool. _Wasn't he supposed to be seeing the elephant in the room by now?_ It was one of those moments that were giving her cold feet, a pretty elusive gleam that maybe, just maybe...

"You... actually knew what this metal was, didn't you?" Jack's unchanging expression was enough of a hint, "Then why would you...?"

The CEO was still counting the puzzles of her disbelief, words increasingly harder to put in a logical order.

The farmer had shrouded his gaze in thought, eyes bound by a spell inside his hat. _It was empty, yet weighing so much in his hand, even more when he would wear it._

 _..._

"Have you ever seen him?

I mean, when he's out there, around the yard,

staring fixedly at the tiles like he's trying to crack them with his eyes...

He will always say he wants to be left alone,

that he needs personal space to think the details of his work...

But after a while... he gets nervous,

sometimes will even start punching his head a few knocks,

like his brain will eventually release a jammed idea.

He just sits there, grinding some words through the pain,

but then it finally comes to him.

He is covered in sweat, but he seems so glad and relieved,

like he had survived a heart attack.

It was a day like this,

with my curiosity peeking from behind a tree,

that I began to see Charles in a different light...

And somewhere inside me, I wanted to..."

 _..._

...Alice stood there like she had seen a ghost. What had really stolen her of breath was that Jack's expression carried the gravity of that scene the whole time, _why would such a trivial situation be engraved so much into him?_ Of course she wasn't keeping tabs of what her employees were doing on their breaks, nor she had the time to spare for such unimportant matters to be honest, though anyone with half a brain cell could tell Charles' passion for perfection was bound to likely include a couple of masochistic quirks.

"For Pete's sake.. Are you saying you felt sorry for him?"

Alice's mental capacity allowed no real room for an answer, she had quickly renounced with a disdainful puff.

"Jack he's only brainstorming his way through a promotion. You should already know this much by now."

The girl briefly shook her head, the whole thing having left her a bland aftertaste.

"Yeah.. I know.." Jack had long cast his eyes onward the exit, "That's what he keeps telling everyone."

Her brow climbed when Jack's slow plod was brought to a still, the boy's head soon at an unplanned dawn. It was the classic L shaped Funland logo invading a circle's territory atop a crimson background, but additionally with the four corners sporting a handheld wrench, each at an angle pinpointing the center. This small touch was perhaps a message that even technological feats were empowered by man's _aspirations._

Jack found himself smiling at the beautiful handmade Funland banner hanging on top of the building's interior, a work of art whose creator could've been no one but Charles.

"...But I think, what he really yearns for.. Is the day you praise his hard work with a smile of your own..."

She ought to be bombarding all the world's snit back at his naivete, _throwing a bone at Charles? come on..._ Yet the entirety of Alice's body had been oddly sapped of the tantrum needed to even mutter a lowly cuss.

 _"...I brought you inside the heart of Funland.. hoping that you and I, coming from the outside world, would be able to see eye to eye... I was a fool thinking the two of us could ever be on the same page... Why... Why is it though I'm the one hurting you with a slap, it's your kind words that always make my heart bleed? I just..."_

 _Just who was that boy, that would go out of his way looking out for friends and enemies alike?_

 _"I see... You think you're some kind of hero.. don't you? Well then..."_

 _Her eyes uprose from the shelter of their shadow, now bathed in a wildfire ready to devour everything that posed a threat to her._

 _._

 _._

On his way out Jack got the impression the lights were kinda losing intensity, perhaps it was the rain messing with a bare wire, but... _Hold on, they actually were_... The atmosphere was a lot more bleak than before. And then...

"What the _—_!"

With a plummeting sound emergency lights started flashing in circles, not a second before the garage door started to roll down.

 _"...a lockdown..!?"_

Losing their color to a pale hue the farmer's eyes whipped around for an explanation. Alice's figure just stood there, like a stoic obelisk, ever condemning him with a grudge as she kept her hand down on a lever.

"You know Jack.. I've learnt a couple of things from our fight in the mines the other day; 1. The robot mole was too large for combat, 2. It was too slow to avoid your hammer's blows— and speaking of Charles, 3. His _worthless_ self-destruction mechanisms can be put to a far better use."

The farmer's eyes were having trouble keeping up with what she was getting at out of the god damn blue, but in any case he had all but a good feeling about this.

"Let's see how you handle _three mini-moles_ about to gang up on you!"

When the door finally shut down Alice softly snuggled an arm under her chest, the other tracing fingers along velvet lips basking in a forbidden pleasure, the challenge had been issued.

"W-Wha! Are you serious?! This is just _—_!"

"Careful _though_.." She wagged her finger at him with a warning, "I don't guarantee they won't explode on you."

Forearms fastened with a vengeance on her chest.

"Now _whack that mole_ Jack! See how fun an arcade game really is!" The CEO's thin silver brow twitched at the irritable recollection.

 _"Oh boy.._ _Beggars can't be choosers huh?"_

A nightmarish development it may be, but it was real, _dicing with death_ real. The farmer quickly reached for his only means to defend.

 _"Where are they coming from..!?"_

He prepared his hammer at shoulder height, eyes rending through their corners with adrenaline spiking. Visibility was as bad as it gets, those things could be burrowing right under his feet for all he knew.

 _"Come on.. come on..! Where are they..!"_

Jack's teeth were gritting under a looming precognition, the boy had already punched the clock swinging the hammer for a very good reason. _It was not long now before he..._

"Fufufu.."

Alice seemed flattered,

 _"Did he really fall for that..?"_

Nevertheless, watching the farmer's gullible mind in disorientation as it created the context of a nonexistent danger was actually quite the entertaining spectacle.

 _"Alright, maybe I should—"_

"Aaaa _—_ ck!"

The farmer felt a pang so sharp that zapped him from top to bottom, in an instant eardrums were buzzing at a high-pitched noise like something had failed. With every ounce of strength leaving his body Jack's stance curved into an early arch when legs suddenly gave out, the hammer slipping away beneath a numb grip as he crippled on his knees.

The CEO's pigtails had cringed upwards from the tool's loud shock wave vibrating through the floor all the way to her. _How heavy was that thing?_ Raising the lever lights returned to normal once again. The executive picked a cautious brow upon a defeated Jack.

 _"Okay, maybe that was a bit of an overkill."_

The brave hero was at his knees, right where she had wanted him, so... _Lesson taken_.

"Jack, I can't believe you really thought there were moles in here, I mean... Digging tunnels and explosions?"

She strutted with an air of sweet victory towards the boy, still, a sighing smile was deemed appropriate as Jack did not answer back. He was probably busy going ballistic realizing the transparency here.

"They'd bring the whole place down, don't you think?"

Even though she was standing right there the farmer still refused to say something. He was just overcome on his knees, expression hanging too limply to give her any sort of sign. In the end only a wild strand cut loose from his hat, releasing a drop of sweat that trickled down on his temple. Although her hands were firmly hooked at her waist Alice was soon wearing a sorry frown as she blinked.. then twice... _this was getting awkward now_.

"C-Come on now Jack.. You can take my slap but not a joke? You're not expecting me to apologize or something righ _—..."_

 _When the farmer's body slightly toppled forward like an unmanned empty vessel Alice's blood ran cold... the gentle caress of a fathomless dread suffocated her heart, never before having tasted the experience of someone falling apart. Not even a breath came from Jack as he slammed on the floor, Alice tackling him barely in time around the underarm to at least prevent him from going with a head first._

"J-Jack _—_ Jack! What are you doing!"

She couldn't believe she was actually crawling on the ground gathering his pieces, _her heels were not deserving such cruelty._

"I warned you it'd be a bother if you ever collapsed here! What am I supposed to do n _—_ Hyaaaa!"

The CEO yanked her examining hand in squirms, she could practically fry eggs on Jack's forehead.

 _"You.. You're kidding me..."_ She was fixed upon him with bolts from the blue _"He's got a fever... No.._ _A fever this bad.. He must've had it way before he—"_

 _"...Sorry..."_ He muttered under his breath.

"Jack!"

The CEO rejoiced, a ray of hope not too far gone in the farmer's half-conscious lids. Alice groaned in a discomfort she had just discovered how painfully unacquainted she'd been with as she heaved the farmer's body the other way to sit on her knees and.. accommodate him.. _where?..._ Eyes scouted around for anything sort of fitting the bill.

Testing tables, equipment carts, _oh.. pallets..._ Yeah, probably nothing comfy in here _._ A workshop's amenities did not exactly make an infirmary. The reconnaissance had returned empty handed... into... _Her lap._ The cruel watery orbs were there again, this time with a sheer and unforgiving embarrassment shooting in irregular upstream currents.

Attempting to move fingers only caused them to shudder numbly, like they weren't his. Just to sustain his eyes was punishing him with a throbbing head, each time focus wavering between clarity and a darkening fog.

 _"Truth is... I've been.. running on fumes... since...—" He could not remember "...I guess the mines.. were more... than what I... could chew..."_

 _Unstable lids were fighting to stay awake again, consciousness fading._

Stiff arms kneaded their way through Jack's still beating chest, his shirt rumpling like a soaked dishrag inside Alice's furled palms with an ever haunting concern _._

"Jack please don't pass out on me.. I-I don't know what to.."

Her lashes squeezed shut.

 _She hated herself, she was helpless, she was pathetic. All that bravado and she was but a girl still wet behind the ears, not even knowing the true face of calamity... not even knowing how to cherish the only person she..._

.

.

 _"...Why did you leave me..?"_

Alice's eyes snapped open in a daze.

"N-No Jack I'm still here I..—"

 _The farmer was not looking at her, his erratic attention lay in the distance_

.

.

 _Everything was blank, a white void, yet oddly warm._

 _There was only one person standing there, but his back was turned to him._

 _His clothes were the same as his, yet his build was a lot more prominent, the testament of a long and arduous life._

 _"...Why did you have to go..?"_

 _An answer would not come,_

 _Only a nostalgic breeze would set the proud gray locks on a journey,_

 _"If only.. you hadn't saved me that day..."_

 _Jack's eyes were welling up bitterly,_

 _"You would be still here now... wouldn't you?"_

 _The boy bit his lip, pining to see his face once more, but his eyes would only ever reach the man's T.O.Y hat._

 _...Thinking of you..._

.

.

* * *

 _27.12.16_

 _End of CH.4_

 _P.S: Don't forget to drop a review! Share your opinion with me, it always keeps a writer going!_ _~TBC_


	5. The day everything changed

_**A/N:** Really, and I mean REALLY important chapters ahead. The HoLV game has already touched a very delicate and interesting subject, hints mostly, pertaining to Jack's family. So I want to expand on that, in a consistent way that ties up nicely with the overall plot. Have fun!_

 _ **Rating:**_ _T_

 _ **Disclaimer:**_ _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

 _ **Chapter 5. The day everything changed - Prelude: Part 1**_

.

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 _2 years ago_

 _._

 _._

An unflexing motion of the wrist unraveled the newspaper pages. He slumped unhamperdly on the recliner's mending leather cushion, without a care one could say since the much-needed day off shone a beautiful stress-free morning through the curtains. The hot coffee's irresistible fragrance was already fondling his nose, inviting him for a timid sip he was going to take all the time in the world savoring to his heart's content. Not on the kitchen table, unknown to him when he'd be jumping from his chair like a madman to catch an early call from work, but in the living room's true hospitality, where wearing his fluffy slippers and striped pajamas he saw himself an unsung king on his throne— and no one, no one was going to deprive him of the craved affair with his neglected quality time.

Skimming through the front page headlines he deemed the moment was drawing nigh for that sip, the cup swirling too playfully around his nose to be left unpunished. It began to tilt for him, lips overlapping the ceramic, almost there...

 _The door banged so loudly the hinges almost came off._

"CHRIST!"

He flipped on his seat like he had been shot down from the heavens of his nirvana, glasses hanging in a jumble on his face _. Thank god his coffee was still safe and sound from that jump-scare._ On the other side, his quality time was going to leave his mouth with a loving burn to remember.

 _Who in their right mind could be beating someone's door at 8 a.m. on Sunday morning?_

Glasses reflected imperviously when a passing thought suggested the possibility of _his_ delinquent acquaintances from school.

However when the mysterious visitor began a melodious song, a so soothing and familiar _ocarina_ song, the delinquents suddenly seemed like a positive surprise when pitted against _him_. When the introductory song reached a conclusion and the door's lock was still in its socket, the visitor whistled so coarsely that a passerby could easily misunderstand that he was calling for his horse.

"For the love of!" Hurling the newspaper on a nearby furniture he had already grown susceptible to narky wide strides. "You brazen old man! Can't you use the doorbell once in your life!? It's there for a god-damn purpose!"

With fingers wrapping like a bundle of nerves around the knob he slammed the door open to his face.

"GAAHAHAHA!" The man had grabbed his tingling sides, broad shoulders gloating in sync with a hearty laughter, "Couldn' help it Matthew! Y'know I always bust a gut when I hear ya blowin' a gasket behind the door!"

The crafty one-sided grin did not exactly help lighten up the mood.

"You need to grow up already, Gus. How much longer to you intend to keep up those shenanigans? Also, it's _Matt_." _Like, since the day I turned twelve._ He reckoned with an inbound objection, perhaps a complaint, an index finger locking his glasses to place.

"Ooh?" Gus feigned an impressed brow, "An' since when did'ya stop callin' me _dad_?"

"That would be the day you allowed that atrocious beard pass the impression you were a mountain grizzly, I believe."

He sucked his cheek at the glaringly obvious, maybe also a bit at the fact his own beard only ever matured to the point of underdeveloped sparse hair on his lower jaw compared to his old man's. _Meh, not a cause for concern._ In any case, brows drew together in adverse amazement at the childlike cap Gus was still wearing _backwards_ after all these years.

"Why'd ya look at that!" A list of praising wrinkles formed on his father's forehead, "Least yer mouth is sharp as always!"

Whenever Gus would take a step forward Matthew saw an eclipse to his quiet chagrin, a refreshed memory reminding him how he'd not even measure up to his father's stoutness. For a man his age he was holding up more than well, still with a beefy pair of arms that looked like they could squeeze juice out of steel and shoulders bulky enough to take Matthew and his wife for a ride. The true mystery here though was that his belly still refused to go fat.

 _Nah, there had to be a sack of potatoes hiding in there._

Gus was probably sucking his stomach in to tamper with the showing of his rust. Either way, those were the fruits of a dedicated farmer, unlike him, who had chosen the white collar's sedentary lifestyle. Matthew was sure Gus was doing this on purpose every time they'd start a war of witty remarks after a long reunion to get a quick edge on him.

"Ya still lookin' quite scrawny, boy."

 _And there it was._

Gus's strict eye had already arrested his son's atrophied-like bicep.

"An' slap me with a mushroom an' call me a sprite but... Are'ya _slouching_?"

Not working out his body he could tolerate, but a pathetic posture was a felony in Gus's eyes.

"Matthew yer still a month short from forty fer God's sake! Straighten up a bit!"

He steered him at the shoulders, with a hoarse grunt when his son wobbled like a weightless toy in his arms. This actually made Matthew crack a fragile smile for his fair concern.

"Yeah, I know.." His neck drooped, guilty of charge. "Honestly I can't even warm up to the idea that I'll wake up and be _sixty_ one day."

Gus withdrew to the side of the doormat, hand swimming inside the sea of a long grey mane to scratch his nape. This man's full head of hair and iron grip were his lone consolation, unavoidably so, Matthew's heads-up had stung a bit, but no more than a pebble in his boot... _Or so he took comfort in pretending to believe._

"Pretty hefty, number isn't it?" Gus's eyes dejected to a forlorn smirk, "The kind of number that makes you think it's time to stop thinking about your dates with women, but maybe the one with the almighty.." _Sixty years, gone by before he could even catch wind of it..._

"Dad..." Matthew's heart was sinking all of a sudden, had Gus actually dropped that annoying country accent? Moreover, his father talking such dismal words was out of character.

"HAAAH!" He pepped up and tousled his son's morning hair. "Ya finally called me yer pops, so I'll call it evens this time!"

Masterfully baiting Matthew into dropping his guard Gus had cleverly succeeded in his family's invasion.

"Oh? What d'we have 'ere?" Not loitering for a second he had already homed in on something.

"Gus no that's—!"

"Coffee? Ya shouldn' have.." He settled for an ample sip.

Shutting the door behind him as if it were to blame for everything, Matthew was still juddering from this well-orchestrated backstab.

"Sometimes it's hard to believe you're my father..."

 _[...]_

Having strolled back from the kitchen in this unforeseen need to prepare another cup, Matthew banished himself at the sofa's far edge, sitting posture twisted almost like a helix away from him to fit a grumpy mood. Matthew was chewing on nails as he had to watch his father consume his own precious coffee. Time and time again family reunions would remind of the unrefined the manners the elderly inhabitants from Leaf Valley could be graced with— _born with,_ he corrected himself with a stern eye when the savage old man almost thumped the cup back on the glass surface of the table. These old folk were so laid back and carefree somewhere inside him he looked with envy at their simple ways.

"Y'know that expresso machine or 'owever ya call it ain't half bad, but still pales 'gainst Wallace's coffee on the stove. Yeh, nothin' like a good ol' coffee on the stove..." _Even though Gus let out to be perky while boasting for Leaf Valley's unrivaled coffee, his chest was actually not as light._

 _"It's espresso Gus.. ESPRESSO." Ignorance be true bliss._ Still, Matthew decided to retract the hard look he'd been giving him when he picked up faint signals of worry in the way Gus had spaced out in thought, the gathered smirk a lousy actor for his old man's cunning.

Gus had been an impossibly outgoing fellow since the earliest days Matthew could remember as his son. However, when it came to truly getting things off his chest, it was a different, and sad story...

Whether it'd be in the range of a farmer's expected mishaps, like his crops not growing as they should, usually when a storm would flood the seeds; or in rare occasions, when an animal would get sick and he'd find himself with a desperate wallet...

 _He'd just laugh it all off, not saying a word about it._

Even when a fight between drunkards in the bar would leave him with a personal grief, gnawing at his conscience the next day, week, sometimes even months...

 _He'd never once bother anyone with it, not his friends, not his own family._

Was it pride or thoughtful consideration for not being a burden to others that had made his old man take that pledge, _to shoulder his pains by himself?_

Matthew might have not lived Gus for the most part, but there was one fundamental detail that was impossible to miss. That below that rough hide, above all else, _was his father_ , a sensitive man whose emotions were like a tangled ball of yarn, and in the off-chance he'd pay them a visit, it'd be all up to Matthew to untie that mess to its core.

"Mr. Wallace..." Matthew's hand was on a pensive chin, the name did ring a bell, "The uh... Lanky and merry gentleman with the thick raven afro and mustache? Oh.. He did have something like a red beret on top of all that pillow of hair too right?"

Gus was blinking in astonishment, like a rock thrown at his head had jammed the old cogwheels.

"WHAA! Ya remembered 'im from that one time I took ya to Moon Garden Pub?! Matthew ya weren't even ten back then! This's just... Gahahaha!" Gus sank convulsing on the sofa, slapping his head with a welcome disbelief as Matthew had just colored Wallace's youth, "Holy CARROTS! If only Woody's memory was half as good as yours!"

 _What an invigorating trip down the memory lane, Wallace with the afro, oh man, that was pure gold.._

Indeed, Matthew's memory of Wallace was but a vintage illustration, a visage from a very long past. Even though Matthew was Gus's son, facts stood that their worlds were entirely different. Gus had spent his whole life in Leaf Valley, the place that had grown to be the paradise to foster all his memories. Matthew on the other hand had moved with his mom to Flower Bud city from a very early age, reason being Matthew's innate appetite for knowledge had equipped him with aptitude for science, therefore his future would inevitably be found beyond Leaf Valley's horizon.

Even though his parents were apart for many years, they'd not stop loving and longing for each other for a single day. When Matthew was finally eligible to take the reins of a renowned clinic, eventually with a family of his own, the day would come his mother would look back the way to Leaf Valley, yearning to be in the arms of the only man she ever fell in love with, the man that himself alone bled in the fields day and night in order to realize their son's bright future.

"He's not looking well Matthew, Wallace I mean..." _There it was again, his father's unfamiliar somber tone,_ "Woody's only got a few issues with memory as far it goes, but he's still strong as a tiger. My other buddy though..." Gus's eyes leveled knowingly as Wallace's escalating hunchback and frail voice were stuck like an ungoing demon in his head, "He's still running the pub you know, but he barely has the strength to go for a walk near the lake anymore. I think age finally got to 'im, poor guy..."

Matthew found it hard to believe how the merry gentleman from his memory was already on a sunset's course.

"I'm afraid age is the only disease we can't fight back Gus." Matthew had taken off the lens to rub it clean, "This is why you can't wait till it comes to worst. If he's not feeling well advise him to come to Flower Bud for a check up." With his glasses back on Matthew was staring ahead at the possibly approaching situation, "I'll personally examine Mr. Wallace, rest assured."

His father's lip crinkled in unspoken gratitude. He had never come here with the intent to ask Matthew into looking after his friend's health, all he had wanted was to confide to his son about an old friend, a friend he shared many memories with. Gus's broad arms reposed on the sofa's back, neck dropping back to ponder.

"You know, the day his wife, Matilda, passed away, Wallace gradually started taking a shift on the wheel. He stopped tagging along for a jaunt up on Pike Mountain like the gang would always do whenever we cut corners at work on a weekend.. or come betting at the horse races to see whose pocket would weigh heavier at the end of the day... _Or emptier._ "

Gus's mouth fought back a raw grin, a certain day glued among the foremost seats of his memory like a yesterday's racket.

 _Woody had gone broke going after the highest odds, refusing to believe this was happening the blonde carpenter attempted to bet lumber instead, yelling and thrashing at Gus and Wallace who were restraining him how the whole thing was a scam. They almost had to give him a sedative to calm his ass down. If someone mentioned it to him, decades since, he'd still rage a face calling it bullocks._

"...and it was not long before Wallace stopped coming to the festivals altogether."

Ultimately, Gus had failed to fend off the siege of a consecutive cackle.

"Well... 'Cept for the Harvest Festival! GAAAHHAHAHAHAA" He almost split his sides laughing, "That sly ol' fox! That's actually the only day his dead eye breaks a crack! He still can't resist checkin' on the gals every year! Guess ol' habits die hard eh?"

 _...That was the merry gentleman...?_

 _Matthew's brows had almost disappeared behind his glasses from the frown, wondering if he should be regretting everything he said about helping that geezer._

"The Harvest Festival!" It had completely slipped his mind, Gus reignited with a cheeky smile, "That's where I also met Matilda for the first time, still little runts back then... That day we danced together, singin', clappin' and flauntin' our skills." The father slowly turned towards his son with a professing face, "I've never told, you have I? Matilda was my first—"

"WUAAAHH" Shrilling his lungs out Matthew swarmed like a lunatic from his seat to place his mother's watching frame facedown, "Are you out of your mind!?"

Teeth were gnashing like dirks in this shameless indignation. Matthew had already flown a possibility that Gus's appetite for countryside's adventures might have lead to some illegitimate frolics at some point, but this was not the place to entrust those escapades, _his poor mother._

"...My first _dancing_ partner." Gus finished the words in a dour sobriety, any sign of self-gratification from before spat away from his face. With a sullen heave to sit up he began to trudge with rebuke towards that fool of a son. "I don't know how relationships in the city work Matthew, but we at Leaf Valley have an ironclad rule." He towered over him with a disarming eye, "There is but one person we give our heart to, the soul mate we are going to dedicate our lives to make each other happy." Having finished his lesson of a stare Gus's eyes released Matthew from asphyxiation, "And she..." He caringly touched undeserving gruff hands on each side of his wife's frame, "She was the only woman... I ever gave my heart to."

A single tear walked on Gus's cheek when he faced her young twenty year old picture.

Matthew removed his glasses, bitterly burning eyes in need to witness his father's quiet mourning without the help of intermediates.

.

What had always won Gus over was her face.

Those sharp aquamarine eyes that even now looked like they were about to nudge him with a suggestive wink, that even now they could make him fall for her all over from scratch. She was different from the other girls in the village, ahead of her time one could say, favoring a pair of short ragged jeans when the other girls would go for more modest options, mostly traditional umbrella-like frocks that'd fall knee-high at best.

Sometimes she'd run away from home wearing a short-sleeved red blouse covered by a thin cardigan sweater that she'd always leave unbuttoned. _Never afraid of the cold._

Then there was her ponytail, a long olive mane she'd always whip at his face whenever she got angry. A ferocious cowgirl that could easily kick his ass if he ever did something wrong.

 _That was Elizabeth_

.

"Wallace and I had the hots for mom from the get go, you know. There was even one time during the Harvest Festival that we dragged the Goddess's statue all the way down to the plaza, just to impress her."

He paused for a moment, desperate to find the key to that sassy look his late wife was giving him.

"It's still a mystery to me Matthew.. Even though Wallace was the one that made the first move on her, it was me Liz confessed to."

He gently caressed her cheek, for even without an answer, Gus was deeply grateful to the woman for accepting this good for nothing farmer.

"In the end, the only memento she left me to remember her was that delicious cake recipe, and she knew I can't bake for shit..."

Defying the swelling floodgates the farmer's smile was both bitter and sweet, telling himself this had perhaps been her last dirty prank on him.

"That recipe would'a been better off in Wallace's cafe. Lil' Katie would be thrilled to try 'er hand at a cake."

 _It was all finally crystal clear to Matthew, he had reached to the bottom at what had been eating away at his father._

That perhaps Liz and Wallace might have been a better pair, that perhaps he had only been a lucky third wheel in all this and his luck may have come at the cost of someone else's merit. Love triangles could really be complicated sometimes, especially since one of the contestants will unavoidably end with the short end of the stick.

And in the case of his father, a man who treasures friends like family... Victory would plant inside the winner seeds of doubt.. Now Matthew knew he had to weed those doubts— No, after all that time they had already rooted deep, but he could at least try to sickle them before they were ripe enough for a harvest.

"I'm not sure if this will be of any comfort, but mom one said she picked _you_ out of the lot because you were the only one so blatantly terrible at the ocarina. Like, it made her laugh rivers of tears listening to your morning performance every day, scaring an entire flock of birds shitless."

Matthew cracked a smirk as he played that out in his head.

"Kuhh..."

Hunching like he had a lance in his gut Gus's bottom lip lamented in tremors, even after 10 years, her nasty jokes had hit the spot.

"GWAAAHAHAHAHA!"

He wiped his eye, tears seemed unnecessary after that jog.

"Yeh, she'd also sling 'er tongue at how I be a sorry 'scuse for a horse rider, but that pinto was just not cut for laps.."

Letting his wife's frame to rest, Gus's hand had found comfort on Matthew's cheek.

"You're the spitting image of her, Matthew. Whenever I look at you, whenever you get angry or crack a rare joke, I _see_ her in you." Gus's eyes were staying on his son's face, on those sharp eyes with the azure iris and the untamed frame, even his defined brow with the characteristic olive shade.

"...You are, and will always be, our pride and joy."

Gus's words had finally discarded their armor.

"Dad.." Matthew's eyes were ready to seep in return.

"That's the second time today, you call me your pops.."

His hand extended past Matthew's ear to invite him for a hug, to which Matthew wholeheartedly complied.

 _How could this old man's warmth get to him every single time? It was a riddle even science couldn't scratch the surface. Was it perhaps because Matthew had not lived enough with his father that was making him vulnerable? Or was it a bearing guilt that his father had sacrificed a lot to get him here, never asking anything in return?_

Still, that feeling of safety while in his strong arms, that assurance while he pated his head, that... _Headbutt?_

"OUCH~!" Matthew took a writhing cover between his knees. "Sweet mother of—"

"Gehehe.. She ain't here!" Gus lifted him up by his pajama's collar. "I didn' come 'ere today so two pitiful ol' men could cry on one another's shoulder!"

"W-What..?" Matthew retreated behind the safety of his glasses, only to blanch when he saw the grin on his father almost reaching up to his ears.

"Where is _Jackson_ , where is that spittin' image grandson of _mine_?"

.

.

* * *

~TBC

 _11_ _.01.17_

 _End of CH.5_


	6. Fathers and sons

**_A/N_** _: Been a while readers! I hope people are fond of this little backstory as much as I am! Always wanted to write scenes fleshing out Jack's father and grandfather. The events in this prequel are going to play a pivotal role in the main story's developments._

 ** _Rating:_** _T_

 ** _Disclaimer:_** _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

 ** _Chapter 6. Fathers and sons - Prelude: Part 2_**

.

.

"Holy _moly_ Gus!", the stomach had leapt in his mouth, "For a second there I thought you flipped your lid!"

Organizing an upside down pulse pounding like stampeding rams through his chest was a thing easier said than done. The oozing vexation was enough to serve seconds after his father's childish little show. His arm swiped like a claw by the couch to snatch the abandoned newspaper, not a particular reason for doing so, Matthew just needed something to pulverize inside the meager grip as he bent elbow high against a window's blinds.

"So...?" The old man's thick fingers wriggled with an itching excitement, "Where is he?"

Matthew tracked with half an eye a couple of youngsters dillydallying flirtatiously along the crosswalk. It'd be not an all time first for a maniac with a pumped ride to rip through the street leaving nothing but a revving vortex behind. Saturday nights could get really out of hand in the city, a pedestrian caution sign would mean literally zero the next morning. _Those kids were pushing their luck_. He could not bring himself to remove the binocular stare till they had safely passed on the other side, a sense of responsibility being a father himself perhaps. The couple had eventually disappeared from his field of view. They were gone for a good while now, yet glasses reflected ever emptily on that crosswalk.

 _The illusion of a boy from a different time was the reason, him taking that very same path, a day when gentle hands for the first time balled into fists to hold tightly onto unrealized dreams. Like a hatchling raising its eyes too soon at the freedom of the skies, already asking itself if the pair of wings on its back could mean a way to go up there. Only once had he looked back, too humble to meet the river in his mother's eyes, yet with a thankful and longing smile bidding them his unfading affection. He stepped at the brink of the nest, till his wings had soared him to places beyond the reach of those who loved him._

 _"Jack has left home.."_ A whisper frozen in time had breathed itself to life, plucking at the heartstrings only a parent has.

"What?" Gus's curt tone tore through the glum moment, "When did'that happen?"

He let go the gap on the blinds he had created with his hand, "It's been three years now, more or less.."

The next breath grated its way up Gus's throat, a brown eye shedding its wrinkles to a towering awe when it got as wide as it could get.

 _"..At sixteen..!?"_

His son apparently shared the same thought process _,_ something inside Matthew had died after that disclosure.

"You never told me any of this in your letters."

It was in one ear and out the other for the son. The recipient just slogged for the couch like he was going through a mire, focus wound up at the floor's desolation.

 _"I've missed a few family episodes, huh..?"_

 _[...]_

This time the two men sat across each other, somehow roles feeling reversed out of the blue in the family therapy session. Gus's boot had been bouncing more unnerved by the minute, the old man reckoned he had been kempt in the dark for more than long enough.

"What's the story Matthew? Anythin' you might want to let in on me? For heaven's sake."

 _Three years? That was about the last time he swung by for a family visit, Jack was still a schooler back then, what the hell happened?_

Matthew wore a depleted complexion as he shut himself inside the cup's inert absorption, each ripple enwidening like a lashing remorse.

"I was always too busy with work.. I never paid enough attention to him.. Never took a moment to think.. Those eyes of his.. Why they were always shy of mine, like they were trying to whisper me something.. It never crossed my mind that my son might be trying to reach out to me.. I was against pampering habits into his head because I wanted him to grow responsible and self-reliant.. Sheila warned me how Jack had become distant lately.. How he kept looking through his window in deep thought.. I had only meant to raise my son while equipping him with a ripe mindset.. that he should not take it as a given that he'd be looked after forever.. Because one day he would find himself out in the real world... But then one day.. he..."

"He left."

When the hard words were filled in for him Matthew almost cracked his molars from a skewering guilt. Gus had that _'you reap what you sow'_ look in his eyes, if not for a temptation to slug his head a new brain and teach him how to be a proper father. Only a hair was holding him back from coming down like a ton of bricks, and that was the inescapable hell in which Matthew had been the one to bear the brunt of his fallacy.. _Then again.._ Gus's eyes fell shut, very aware how he hadn't exactly been a role model of a father either. How could he blame his son for passing on his own flaws.

" _No use crying over spilled milk now..."_

Being a man of science religion had never been his cup of tea, but Matthew was now holding his hands in penance.

"I didn't want him to take everything I said as the gospel, he'd always been a chirpy light-hearted kid.. However Jack was actually letting every word sink in behind closed doors... It was my fault for not being there... When Jack started to develop an adult's outlook on life that a boy his age shouldn't.. I don't remember at what point it started showing, but I'd try talk to him about his future and we'd get at odds.. He'd often argue how college tuitions would only put extra years of strain on our financials.. That providing for such an expensive life was not the way to be an independent person.. But more importantly, how he was not interested in office jobs sitting on a chair all day to begin with.. and instead how taking up every little part-time opportunity he'd come across would hone him into a well-versed practical worker.."

"A _Jack_ of all trades.." Sitting up Gus shrugged an amused chuckle at how much all this sounded like his grandson.

"Yeah.." Matthew admitted a fragile smirk, "I wanted Jack to prepare for life reading books, _like I did_ , not getting his hands dirty at work before he could even hatch from his egg.."

"Bah well.." Gus lent an arm of consolation to his son's shoulder, "Ya can't keep 'em under your wing forever. They grow a pair sooner or later."

 _That was regrettably accurate._ As a matter of fact... It was the alarm clock of a raw truth Matthew had been trying to avoid waking up to; _That Jack had a knack for this stuff. He was social and hard-working. Eager at giving a helping hand whenever someone was floundering. He'd not hesitate stepping into the breach to get it done. He was simply good at it... Being helpful and productive, running from one place to another contributing small and big was what made him happy and fulfilled. It was a lucid second thought now, that perhaps it had never been his steadfast attitude that made his son walk down that path. To others Jack might give the idea of being an open book, but he was never easily swayed. He was a boy who had always followed his heart, wherever it would take him. The decision he made, it had been his, and his alone... Jack's rebel wink and raised thumb were stuck in his head._

"He's definitely taken it from you.. _That stubborn enthusiasm_.." Matthew surrendered to a defeated smile.

"And..?" An unusual timid stare required Matthew's verdict, "Are you proud of him..?"

Those words.. They carried an impossible weight to Matthew's eardrums, untapped emotions twisted inside him to create a knot in his chest. Reeling an eye back to his father he quickly saw how settled and encouraging his expression was, not threatening him for a bribed statement, but only asking for a _sincere_ answer. It was that moment when he peered into his father's decrepit gaze surrounded by a lagoon of crinkles that Matthew saw through the undercurrent. _That his father was not asking only about Jack._

"Of course.." The stiff lip he tried to put up was dithering, but the creek sliding down his cheek was leaving no room for doubt, "Of course and I'm proud of him!"

Matthew had finally caved when he was revisited by the image of his son's proud back on that crosswalk. Ηe hunched on his knees to hide the tears of happiness his bitterness didn't allow him back then, even though he had wanted to, from the bottom of his heart. Jack had already achieved so much on his own, at a time most kids his age were still living inside the safety of their family's bubble, oblivious of the world's cruel hardships. Even if it weren't the path Matthew had wished for him to follow, Jack was still paving the way to his own dream. He was already a grown-up. How could a parent not be overwhelmed with joy?

Gus let his lids rest at a smile's disposal, those were the words a father could gladly wait ten lifetimes to hear. _That their child, had been proud of their family._

"That's right.."

Matthew swept his sniffing nose and reclined back in a mood free of the mist of uncertainty, his smile finally seeing things through the true gallant spectrum.

"A few of Jack's friends from school come visiting every now and then, asking when Jack is coming back. They miss him."

Glasses had a stain on the lens, he took them off.

"When I tell them Jack is already living by his own earnings they just gawk at each other."

"Geheh.. Can't blame 'em." A brow flinched when Gus's negligence slapped him at the neck, "Totally forgot 'bout it. How's Jack getting by?

"I think he's been working full time at a pet shop since last month, he sounded really excited in his letter, apparently his boss is a kind person and Jack's warmed up to the place."

That sparked something in Gus's eyes, _"Ooh.. so he's learning how to take care of animals eh?"_

He groomed a handful of beard in light of this interesting piece of information. However the brewing cauldron of a grin was gunned down too soon when Matthew pinned him with a guarded click of his glasses.

"Hrmph.." Gus pretended to clear his throat, he was sober again "So.. where he livin' at now?"

That part was a tad complicated to put into words, lucky for him Matthew withdrew his security cameras.

"Hmm well.. He's moved at the southern outskirts of Flower Bud. It's quite a long trip to be honest.. He's lodging at an inn by the hillside, they let him pay his nights by doing housework and such.."

"An inn, huh..?" Gus was stroking that itchy bush again, _"Lil' punk.. Bet the nights he's buried under a bottle of hard scotch and a woman's honey."_ . _..That came out loud, didn't it?_

"Is that what you had in mind when you said _you can't keep them under your wing forever_?" Matthew was whetting daggers under his sleeve.

"H-Hey now..!" His father signaled for a cease fire, "I also said they grow a pair sooner or—"

"Gus!" His hand came like a hammer at the cushion, "Jack is not that kind of person. He'd never leave his family to seek lewd distractions."

Matthew was adamant, but Gus could not wipe that unretreating grin from his face. _Great... This looked like the beginning of uncomfortable chatter._

"C'mon, ya can't tell me ya haven't crossed that bridge yet." He nudged his son with an elbow, "Y'already had Sheila with a kickin' tummy at nineteen."

"Different times Gus. We were naive and careless back in our days. We also learnt it first hand where half-baked family plans can lead to.. You and me both."

Gus scratched an unapologetic cocked brow accounting their admittedly rushed achievements, nothing seemed wrong there. Their marriages had been more like a rollercoaster for sure, but all panned out well in the end. His son did have a point though, the new generation of whelps arranged priorities with a different framework, growing a family was now a ticket standing at the end of the waiting line.

"But..." _Matthew had joined hands in a clasp again_ , "If Jack were to meet someone.. I wish it would be an understanding and compassionate person." _Lids soothed wistfully_ , "One that will love him for his flaws and will pour the warmth of her heart on his own.."

 _Yeah, that was the gist of the tale.. As father and son, they had challenged the odds not few times_ — _not few times making not the best call. But the woman they had picked.. That was the one decision not even god could question._

"That's peachy an' all but.." Gus's eye swam with a playful intention to poke, "What if a _haughty naughty_ one is attracted to 'im? _Then_ what?"

"Hmph." Matthew's lip was confident as he dismissed the idea to the gutter of his mind, "That's not even a funny thing to say Gus. Jack has a heart of gold, why should he even let such people get close to him?"

"Cause he's got _a heart of gold_ , you jus' said it."

 _That double edged sword was his grandson's greatest virtue and also his bane._

"Remember when Jack climbed up that crab neighbor's rooftops to rescue a lost cat? He earned the yellin' of his life, almost got himself killed totterin' his way down the slope, an' when he finally reached it the damn thing scratched his face all bloody."

An arm came to scrub the wretchedness all over his expression. That was an unpleasant story everyone had wanted to forget. Matthew had been rocking back and forth with chin on a rigid sphere of hands before a peaking thrust shoved him off the couch, his mission to be found at a wall cabinet. Gus could hear sounds of glasses and dinner plates clanging against one another before the mayhem went mute. _A flint rasped._

"...Well I'll be damned.. Now that's a nasty habit you got there Matthew..." The first cloud blew his way, "And to think you're a doctor..." The draconian eye followed him back to his seat.

"Don't worry, I don't even like putting that thing in my mouth.. But I have to keep them stashed there in case of a panic attack.."

 _Skeletons in the closet.. they just kept flooding in today._ "I won't tell you how to handle that crossroad. You're a big boy to decide what's for your own good."

 _"Point taken.."_ _He nodded to himself._

 _[...]_

His Lucky Strike smoke proved to be a poor stress reliever, Matthew had begun chewing on his thumb for a while now, there was something he had meant to bring up before but never got the chance to. The fact his father was just casually sprawled on the couch fiddling with his belly wasn't much of an opener, but he could not keep the seal on his mouth anymore.

"Gus.. Is it true? About Leaf Valley, I mean.. That they're planning to..."

"Aah..."

His father groaned as if he had a sudden indigestion.

"Apparently some rich guy's prodigy daughter is climbin' the company ranks like wildfire. They've already bought a piece of land up above Pike mountain to start the ball rollin'.. Can ya believe this crap? That place used to be an endless flower field brimmin' with all sorts of wildlife, now all that gone to a construction site's cement..."

"Isn't there anything the locals can do? A public protest maybe?"

"Who knows what those suits are schemin' behind our backs.. Can't do a thing till we get our hands on that deed." Gus's eye lapsed on Matthew's cigarette case, "Sorry, mind if I..?"

Letting his old man flirt with nicotine? Not a good idea, but given the tall wall he was up against a lenient shoulder had to shrug allowingly. The zippo lighter flicked, lungs expanding with disregard to sponge up the chill. The tip of the cigarette seared at an exigent pace, equally indispensable were the prolonged seconds he let the smoke take foul residence inside him.

"I'm too old to pick fights anymore Matthew.. but I'm not gonna let a little girl turn my village into her personal playground. If it comes to war I'll—"

 _The doorbell rang._

"Shit!" He lunged to put out the cigarette. "Don't tell me that's my daughter in law! She'll bite my head off if she—"

"No.." Matthew's eyes were staggered, the doorbell still ringing with a rapid enthusiasm, "That's...!"

.

.

* * *

 _04.02.17_

 _End of CH.6_

 _P.S: Don't forget to drop a review! Share your opinion with me, it always keeps a writer going!_ _~TBC_


	7. What goes around comes around

**_A/N_** _: Hey guys! I'm actually going to throw in one more (?) extra chapter in this setting. (Honestly, at this point, I'm not even sure anymore...) I'm having so much fun with this little thing scenes just keep flooding in my head! I'm sorry if this is a hassle to anyone who wants the main story back in the game, but I really want these chapters to hold a special place. You won't regret it! Have fun reading!_

 ** _Rating:_** _T_

 ** _Disclaimer:_** _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

 ** _Chapter 7. What goes around, comes around - Prelude: Part 3_**

.

.

Matthew had been summoned from his seat, his poor stance instantly fixed into a soldier at attention. The unearthly remedy doused Gus in an eerie chill, _if only such a cure existed for his old bones._

Τhere was only one person in the world that could effortlessly corner Matthew into such a restless cringe. That would be his wife Sheila, an exotic tour guide with a voracity to travel around the world's wonders for the most part of the year, but never let their home fall into ruin in her husband's untrustworthy hands for more than a week. In that case, an otherwise normal doorbell would actually be the harbinger of a situation that was not at all different from a drill sergeant's wake-up raid.

The true mystery here though was that his son had crossed off the possibility of inspection day like it was another stub in the ashtray. What cataclysm could be more alarming than his daughter in law? _Could it be... nah.. it was too much of a long shot to hope for.. He was far away._ Gus wasn't one to let blind spots in his guard get the better of him, but that one did..

"Shouldn' you uhh.. get that door? Looks important from the sounds of it."

"But I.. I think.." Words faltered in backsteps, he could find no backbone for this confrontation. The ringing pattern then dwindled to lulled intervals, a finger was going numb.

 _"Come on dad! I'm feeling like a boy scout messing with colonel Blimp's doorbell out here!"_

Matthew bit back an outraged shriek, Gus almost popped his eyeballs at a teary snort. More than adequate information had been provided there.

"Well.. are'ya just gonna stand there all day?" The elder was checking to confirm his nostrils were still in place.

"What should I do.." He was holding his breath again. "It's Jack.."

"No _shit_..!" Gus gaped with awe at Matthew's powers of farsight. A samaritan hand reached his son.

"Hyee~!" for an unfatherly slap on the back that sent him into the ring.

"Why _stick me some feathers an' call me a chicken_ , Matthew.. do _ya_ squeal like a woman.. Stop bein' a wuss and get your skinny ass goin."

 _Easy for him to say._ It was out of the frying pan and into Jack. Several times he reconsidered the option in a cop-out turn, and every time what he felt creeping on his neck was a glare so merciless like the tip of a saber was ready to jab his _skinny ass_...

Out there was his son, who would now stand three years older than the last time they exchanged eyes. _That boy out there, would he even be able to recognize his face? Would Jack recognize his? Would he look taller? More handsome? More fierce?..._ No, those were all the wrong questions right now. He should be focusing on how to respond after that door opened. _Should he go for a welcome hug?_ No, too forced.. a normal handshake would be more appropriate, hugs would just seem anticlimactic considering their last bouts...

His hand was already on the knob, but too damp to get a decisive grip. _The ringing stopped. Weird, Jack gave up?..._ This window was his last chance, and thus the door sheepishly creaked...

 _[...]_

Sitting on the banister handrails of his doorstep was a young boy, too distracted on hovering shoes to notice he was being studied through a slit.

A sigh filled his eyes while evaluating the pair of hi-top trainers he was wearing. More than just covered in several layers of dust, they had been worn beyond repair. When he wiggled a toe against the shoe his face contorted at the sting of a forming blister, even the insoles felt like they were in pieces, ground to death from the nightlong marathon. They were just casual shoes, not even belonging to a brand with a big name, yet what remained important was that they had nonetheless become part of his own small family of assets. No matter how second-handed or cheap, whatever came to be straight out of his living would always hold a special attachment... _because therein lay the proof of his runaway existence._

 _"Least I made it.."_

The thought seemed to replenish a thread of comfort, his long journey having paid off... _if the door ever budged, that is.._ and with an inward shrug his thin optimism was put in detention again.

His clothes weren't anything particularly special for that matter either. Dark gray track pants of flexible cotton fabric with cuffs to keep his legs warm, curiously enough, with an odd number of zippers and pockets on calves and thighs. The peculiar additions seemed to whisper a tale of utility than a fancy one. The ashen sweatshirt was one of the same, somewhat falling in place with the overall outfit and providing Jack's hands a cozy nest inside the kangaroo pockets.

The doctor paused his remote examination, a lens becoming transparent as nape muscles tightened and he backed away a bit. Traces of golden straw-like stuff were stuck on Jack's sides... His eye narrowed to scale light intake and create conditions for a zoom-in.. it looked like.. _hay?_

 _"Oh god, please tell me he's not sleeping in a barn..."_

He held that train when Jack's head arched backwards at a wide yawn's irrepressible urge, followed by a hand that unburrowed reluctantly to ruffle the groggy head. More hay shed from his hair.

 _"...He's sleeping in a barn." Matthew's head stooped at the floor._

His son's _arousing_ whereabouts were a subject for extensive discussion, yet a repressed joy made its way on the father's lips... _Jack was here,_ and with him were the undeniable showings of an unshackled life. Back when Jack was still living with them Matthew never let him grow his hair beyond modest proportions, above anything, he saw to Jack maintaining a tidy and orderly hairdo that fell in line with a formal presentation. A disciplined one maybe, _he bethought..._

 _"Look at you now.." He gave in to a snort, unable to believe it was actually out of a praise that went against his upbringing. Once again he beheld that bud of his._

It was beyond doubt Jack had been visiting the hairdresser no more than once a year since he bailed home. Though his hair now practically looked like an exile's, the ungroomed strands somehow managed to band together and form dozens of rich spiky ends that flared smoothly in unruled directions, a wild and flourishing vegetation that even draped over eyes in a tropical fashion. So untended, yet so natural and captivating, like that unleashed hair had always been trapped inside him. _Jack's friends would probably be huddling up to tell him how cool he looked. Yeah, Jack was..._ Wait.

Matthew's lens fractured when Jack overreached to stretch an arm. _Was that a short ponytail that looked like a god damn shave brush?_

First Gus with that blasphemous untrimmed beard, now his son with a _friggin ponytail_? What was next? _A hipster bun?_ His blood pressure could only take so much scruffiness for one day... The father was fuming, his thirst for a purge a volcano's ominous plumes.

 _Beards... ponytails... beards... ponytails... They were spinning around his head like the devil._

 _"That does it...!"_ He went over the roof, the door banged against the wall, "Bring me the LAWNMOWER!"

 _"—!"_

Not only Jack, who had cringed in his morning stretch exercises, but all foot traffic outside had quieted down. Matthew was suddenly taking in so many identification stares at once he simply wished the earth opened its mouth and swallowed him whole. When public movement finally hit the resume button people walking by the pavement seemed to dawdle while whispering amongst themselves, likely wondering if a patient from the psychiatric ward was on the loose. _An idea probably not far off the mark, considering._

"Hey dad."

"Hey Jack."

And the first words he spoke to his boy after three years were his auto pilot's mirror response, like he was another acquaintance he had met on his way to work and whose face he could never retain in memory. _Splendid_. That was one underwhelming greeting he'd carry with him on his deathbed. But _hey_ , the ice had broken.

Jack was drawing a defensive, _probably with an undercover worry_ , line on his expression, "I.. don't think you've got a lawnmower dad.. cause.. you don't have any lawn..?"

"A-Ah.." He stuttered, the fidgets he was letting out above what he'd estimated, "I guess, I don't.." His head was secretly being scratched for a way out of this. "So I thought.. it'd be nice if.. we had some green.. around..?"

Jack blinked with a genuine bafflement for two seconds, that was honestly one thing he'd not expect to come from his father's colorless standards.

"Whoa! Good thinking dad!" He blazed a fist, propelling himself off the handrails, disquieting thoughts annulled.

 _"Oh thank god... he actually.. went along with that?" Matthew's smirk was guiltier than a death row convict's._

"I mean yeah! If you look at it from afar the house looks like another white block lining up along the road, could definitely use some new ideas to stand out some."

Jack stopped and relaxed his posture, heel dragging upwardly on his other leg's cuff and arms folded behind his neck as he smiled approvingly at his father.

"R-Right.."

Matthew mumbled something under a sweating accordance, _he was supposed to start planting grass now? Good grief... But more importantly, another matter had risen._

"Jack.. is that..."

"Mm..?" He twiddled something around his tongue.

"... a _wheat straw_ you're playing like a toothpick?.." Matthew shrugged his glasses at the end pieces, _this couldn't be right..._

"Heheh..!" His son posed on a shy chin, the righteous smirk hiding a secret only he knew, "...and here I thought you'd never a—AAAH!"

 _He was being violently shaken._

"Jack be honest with me!" He had him at the shoulders, "Do the people over there treat you well?— Do they give you enough food?— Do you have enough clothes? — Money?"

 _Nausea_. He was sieving Jack like he was in need for his son to throw up something he didn't want to hear.

"D-Dad it's cool, I'm not—"

"Jack!" He held him still, eyes tunneling into his son for the truth and nothing else, "Do you.. sleep in a barn?"

The question was calm, the last wave of the tide. Jack sighed from his nose, collecting a reassuring smile.

"It's okay, I know you're worried sick dad.." He tagged his father's shoulder, the grip strong and reaching, "But trust me, everything's fine."

 _What was this feeling...? Wasn't his son the one living by part-time scraps? Wasn't Jack the one supposed to be distressed and desperate for a shoulder to lean on? And yet... why did this feel like a deja vu? The one being comforted once again.. was the father?_

"But... you're so thin.. you've lost so much weight.. I can just tell by touching your arms.."

"No biggie, that's just me not being around for mom to stuff me to death every time she comes home from a trip." He snickered sideways on that lack of duty.

Matthew's arms slid down on Jack's, till they had dropped lifeless on his sides. _Jack could be one hell of a smooth-talk trickster when he wanted to hide his hurt from others. A spittin' image grandson indeed..._

"Hey, look.." Jack sprang his knuckle in an uppercut move, "Pretty awesome, right?"

The father had finally lifted his mop of a face. Jack was showing him.. _his glove?... It had a nice bubbly paw-like pattern on it.._

"Elena from the pet store gave them to me. Said _it was too breathtaking watching me tend to the animals with such care._ "

Jack saw how his father's brows rose with a question mark over his glasses, he was probably not going to catch on unless Jack used terms his dad was familiar with.

"I'm getting a raise."

"Oh!" The bright news had visibly overjoyed him, now he looked a lot more open to conversation.

"Anyway, dad." Jack planned a step back, palm against his waist. "Remember the mail you keep forwarding to my new address at the inn? The ones you always just bundle together on a string, never curious to even peek who the sender is?"

"Um, yeah.." A finger dug the underside of his chin, "There's usually so much mail piling up every month that I don't really find the time to sort them out. Did I accidentally send you a stray one? _Maybe mom's long globetrotting bill?_ " _He had a hard time forcing down that lump._

"No~.." He hummed with a hint, "but among the letters was one from a very _special_ person."

Jack could just smell it in the air.

 _And Matthew could just smell a rat_. A sneaky one that was right under his nose the entire time.

"The thing is I only got the letter yesterday so I had to leave the hillside at midnight to get here. I got off on foot and for a while I was afraid I wouldn't make it on time. It was already breaking dawn, but then I was lucky to stumble on a farmer with a cart delivering fodder somewhere near the city. He gave me a ride and somewhere along the way I guess I dozed off."

"Uh-huh..." Matthew was about to doze off himself. He had forgotten how sprightly Jack's tongue could get when an adventure would set his spirits on fire.

 _Anyhow, that certainly explained a bunch... For starters, Gus had apparently not sprouted on his door without prior notice, he had sent a letter to inform Jack, but since Jack was not here, they all would have to figure this mess in a roundabout way._

 _Then the fodder cart.. Unthinkable to say the least, but boy was it a relief to hear the hay wasn't from Jack's overnight nap in some barn. "Maybe... I jumped the gun on him.."_

"That old farmer had a wheat blade on his mouth while going at some quaint jokes" _—_ _Well, I didn't really get half of them but...—_ "I thought he was pretty cool."

Jack looked at his own wheat straw one more time before he let it drift in a tailwind.

 _"It was a fun journey!"_

Hopefully taking it somewhere far away from the city's infertile grounds.

Wonders would never cease, the father had been put in the shoes of a powerless spectator in this farewell. It was a scene one would never see in the city, watching a boy see off a piece of wheat as if it were a living being, behind Jack's smile reasons and sentiments he could not understand. It was like the winds of fate had brought a fallen leaf back to the tree it separated from, and just like that they could easily take it away any second.

"I'm just glad you're here Jack.."

Matthew slowly closed the distance between him and his boy, he just wished Jack's mother were here for this gathering.. _The moment for that welcome hug was ripe._

"Oh..?"

Jack's sniffing eye squeezed past his father's enclosing arms, he had just now realized the trail of mud leading up to the door hadn't been leftovers only from his own shoes, those chunks were actually going _through_ the door _._

"Gramps is already here!?" He dodged that hug.

 _Matthew's empty hands were sweating, that was a one time chance of three years' worth he had just missed. "... Darn!"_

 _[...]_

Entering in a casual saunter Jack had made himself at home, he was admittedly a tad curious how much this place might have changed over the years.

"Hey Grandpa!" The shout was like a declaration of his arrival, "Guess who's back for a remat— _!_ "

An unpleasant odor had suddenly plagued his respiratory system, Jack built an impromptu dam on his air passage with a hand. _What was that smell? Something had been on fire?_ There was a strange fog circulating inside the room. Bulging eyes were at their limit, he began to cough with ruptures in his hacking, then he was heaving for air, then choking over the same.

"Dad what the heck! Did you burn something in the kitchen again? Mom will be—"

 _"Jackson... The little black sheep returns to my shed..."_

 _A dark and menacing whisper descended upon the room's dimly illuminated spaciousness._

 _The little black sheep was overwhelmed... what shivered on its expression... was a beast's ecstatic grin._

 _The game was on._

.

.

* * *

 _04.02.17_

 _End of CH.7_

 _Fun Fact_ — _For those who might be reading the story, but might not be familiar with the game: Jack's father, grandfather and grandmother, even though not seen in-game, are characters referenced throughout its course. They're not as entirely OC's as you might think! I'm merely giving them a personality!_

 _~TBC_


	8. A never ending dream

**_A/N_** _: After a long break the story continues! Here we go!_

 ** _Rating:_** _T_

 ** _Disclaimer:_** _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

 ** _Chapter 8. A never ending dream... - Prelude: Part 4_**

.

.

There'd be a time in life every person would come to face the mirror of their choices.

Jack was a boy born of the city who had long been trying to escape that home, his own roots _._ He never saw himself a victim of circumstances, he was not some tragic hero coming home, and he was not immune to emotions like anxiety or fear either. Uneasy signals were rushing throughout every fiber of his body, ahead a stage that was on a whole different level from his mother or father. Be that as it may, he knew all too well how at this point taking a step back was not an option offered to him.. not anymore at least. His grace period outside his family's walls had always been accompanied by an imminent expiration date. _Now, after three years, he was finally being judged for those choices._

One member of the jury had been worried nuts about him, as a result he did not have the courage to pronounce him guilty. However the other, the more senior one... He would bring down the gavel without a granule of the parental love and favor the other one showed. An uphill battle awaited him, yet only in rare moments like this Jack's eyes could finally descry something shining in a faraway land. What that light was, _still unknown.._ Only overcoming challenging ordeals along the bumpy road seemed to chew the distance, even if by very little.

However this time calling his path hard would be a big understatement— because with this person... _He would have to go like iron through the fire._

"Gus?" Matthew stopped a few feet past the entrance and called out to his father, honestly he found it odd how his boisterous old man didn't partake in the loud commotion.

Maybe he had an epiphany and used this bought time to at least try and hide their doings? _Yeah, that sounded about right._ His view wandered around the room only to confirm his father was missing from where he last left him. Matthew's forming smile froze mid-way completion, meeting a cigarette case and a not empty ashtray, _which were offered in plain sight atop the coffee table.._

 _"Christ.."_ He shook down his head with a disgruntled whimper. _"You had one job Gus.._ "

Jack had never been in the presence of a smoker before, he wasn't even really accustomed to the smell to tell it apart. Even if he happened to walk into the vapors afterwards the first thing in his head was that _something nasty had caught fire..._ Which was actually.. pretty accurate.. and perceptive.

He wasn't an idiot, Jack would sooner or later figure they'd been turning the living room into a living chimney. Good thing it was so dusky for some reason.

 _"Did he close all the curtains instead?"_

Not the best fix, but it could work for the time being... Gus would eventually show up with a full grin and a seismic marching — _his father's definition of a big entrance_ — which would then give Matthew the opportunity to sneak up behind Jack and get rid of the evidence.

 _"Where did he fly off to anyway?_ _He can't be in the bathroom.."_

Matthew's head started to tilt, running out of ideas.

 _"I definitely heard him say something about black sh—...!"_

A fleeting glimpse glaciated, eyes drained of color.

 _"Wait, don't tell me he..!"_

His spine shot with a dreadful voltage when his son ventured inside the eye of the lingering smog, undeterred by the chuckles prowling in on him from every possible direction. _Those chuckles... those sinister chuckles...!_

"Dad.."

Jack didn't budge as he spoke, the reserved tone pointing at a heads-up.

"You'd better close the door. This might get really ugly like real s _—_ " The door slammed shut, _"That was fast..!"_

Jack sweat-dropped with an eye gummed on its rim. _Disbelief_. Matthew had actually locked himself outside in a tumultuous retreat. He certainly didn't take his time leaving his son to figure it himself. Well, not that it mattered... Jack could once again call back his own spunky grin, gaze onwards.

"It's only you and me grandpa, you can come out now..!" _There was a lure hiding in his voice?_

 _"Gehehe... Listen to yourself.. Thinkin' a lamb like you can sniff out the shepherd. Your friends at the inn taught you that?"_

Jack's stomach kicked to grab the laugh back inside, boy how he'd missed that old man's sarcasm.. So it was a game of names then?

"Well..." He stalled with a tease, "You might not believe it, but the shepherd sent the lamb a letter, so the lamb had to seek him out because it was afraid the shepherd went crazy thinking it could read."

 _"Ooh.. ohohoho..." The shepherd's incremental amusement seemed to take the bait, "But there was a good reason for it!... Didn't ya hear? It's that time of the year the lambs get their wool sheared..!"_

 _"...Oh boy..." Jack's adam apple bobbed. That allusion did not bode well for him..._

 _"Cat got your tongue?"_

"Nah.." Jack peeped over a suspiciously broad armchair, _nothing_. "I was just thinking how the clippers might get the shepherd's fluffy beard if he's not careful."

A small victory walked on Jack's lips when the only answer to come back were some low mutterings. He moved as quietly as he could next to a shady gap between the tall grandfather clock and the cupboard, it was a smart guess. _But nothing there either._

 _"You are a hundred years too early to be putting manly qualities like beards on your mouth Jackson."_

Oh, the name game was up? He had passed the test?

 _"So while you're at it, why don't ya try putting some meat on those bones of yours instead?"_

So now it was the _'strike where it hurts the most'_ game of revenge huh? The only game Jack wasn't good at. However since today he had been invited by this special host, he might as well give it a try.

"Mom already tried that recipe on me, didn't work.." Jack crossed his arms, shrugging with a down-stare his lack of a motive, "What good would a fat belly do on me anyway?"

 _"Hrmph.." More self-important mutterings._ " _What bad would it do havin' one?"_

 _Hm..._ Jack's inner projection rubbed a finger under his nose, the smirk extending with an improvised follow-up.

"Now that I think about it grandpa, there's this one person I know.. and he's always sucking his belly in for some reason."

 _"Kuh.." A lion bellowed woundedly, somewhere nearby too._

 _After that Jack's ear couldn't get a grip on anything, neither Gus's chuckles, nor his grumbles._ The _heavy_ attack had apparently sent the lion with a limping leg, but Jack knew his grandfather was far from done. Of course he wasn't proud of himself attempting a low blow on Gus's self-esteem, but those were the game's set of rules Gus himself had established years ago. In a nutshell; _to keep throwing jabs at each other till one was out for the count._ This would always begin as a simple mind game, but at the same time it'd prove to be a test of mental fortitude, to implicitly evaluate how diligently the combatants had been honing their spirit during the years they were far from each other. _Gus had always said that a mind was no different from a sword— so when two swords clashed neither could afford rust on its blade._

Jack's reminiscing lids rose from the brief flashback. There was a glaring protrusion up ahead, sticking out behind the curtains of the window in the far depth. It was round in shape, enough for the grandson to indulge in a forewording smirk. The scales were suddenly tipping in Jack's favor, this game was about to go in the bag. _"Gotcha.."_

Not a sound spoke of his nearing, with a swift motion he parted the veils.

"AHA!— Wha—!"

A celebration short-lived. Jack reflexively leapt back to a safe distance.

 _A pillow, sitting atop the radiator... A pillow.. on the radiator? Surely that hadn't climbed up there on its own._

No matter how he'd slice it Jack had been outwitted by a trick only children would fall for. The extreme confidence he'd built up thinking he'd hit the jackpot had turned into a muffled protest. _But only for a moment._ Craftiness and whatnot, it was still a challenge of the sword, and with the sword he'd answer. _Jack easily regained his smile._ It was time to push Gus's button and bring this hide-and-seek to an end.

"Come out grandpa, you're too old to be playing these kind of games."

 _Following was an elongated silence, void seconds stirring Jack the excitement to see how his grandfather would emerge from the shadows. It certainly would be an elaborate and complex hiding spot._

 _"You are right about one thing, Jackson..."_

 _His voice..! It was so close! But where!?_

 _"I don't play games..."_

 _Jack then sensed a pair of predatory eyes slowly light up on his back. Hesitation caught him stiff. The boy twisted his waist like a dummy in need of winding, a look of horror on his face. There was a flapping gust, overcoats and other heavy winter clothing violently brushed aside._

"I HUNT GAME!"

Gus stormed out of the coating rack, madness in his charge.

.

There was a saying;

 _Grab the bull by its horns,_

an idea appealing to Jack as much as a chilling cat stretching to see a foaming pitbull coming at it.

The cat's tail puffed up like a christmas tree.

.

"AWW MAN— _!"_

 _The gloves were off_

.

Jack avoided with a hair's casualty the massive arm that grazed just past his ear, the claw audibly tearing through the air with not a muscle slacking off. If one of those connected Jack would probably end up in the bedroom through a shortcut in the wall.

"Hah!" Gus pegged a challenging eye, "You think you're all grown up!?"

The boot twisted forward, springing for the next explosive launch. The assailant lunged ruthlessly at the boy who could only make a cross of his arms and guard in hopes not to get blown to smithereens.. _Wait_ , _the truck passed by him.. missed him?_

"WHOA— _!"_

Jack flinched at Gus's right arm that had deliberately lagged behind, now flying to decapitate him.

 _"A lariat!?"_

He shifted the strength from his knees and bent backwards, almost limboing under the scissor assault. Only the tip of his nose was not fast enough to evade Gus's formidable forearm, a touch more than plenty to send Jack's light body tumbling.

"Guh..!"

"You think you can just walk away from home!?" Not even being allowed a moment's breath Jack's eyes stilled and shrank, a boot hoisting its potent weight right above his torso, _for a crushing stamp_.

Jack was already gritting his teeth, _he was cornered, but he could not afford to lose here,_ the only option was to roll sideways. _What an earthquake.. Gus's foot probably cracked the floor. Tenacity... fervor... anger..._

The grandson barely had pilfered the time to recover from the relentless onslaught, a crouched knee still unready as he reached up the for the table's edge to pull himself together. However, he wasn't the only one... Gus's movements seemed to lose steam, _he was huffing and puffing now..._ _Age was on Jack's side._ He could try to evade him with a sidestep making good use of a last-second timing. Gus was not letting him go, he darted himself at Jack once more.

"YOU THINK YOU CAN LET YOUR OWN FAMILY WILT IN MISERY!?"

 _Something gasped in Jack's eye. It was telling him to stop dodging... "Wilt.. Misery...?" To stop running away from the truth.. He stood his ground with no intention to defend._

Gus's fist had stopped an inch from Jack's nose, tendons throbbing rampantly. His brow cocked, surprised, then knitted, inquiring. Not that he hadn't already given him a run for his money, but Jack giving up? That wasn't like him... His eyes though.. they had not thrown in the towel yet.

"...The misery _you_ once had to go through, grandpa?" Jack looked up to him unsmiling, the question reflecting a reverberation.

Gus's stare widened.. trembled.. crinkled.. then shut peacefully. Somewhere inside him he was snorting happily that after all those years his denial and grief were able to manifest through mere eye expressions.

"If you already know that bitter tale, why did you do that awful thing to your old man? Have you ever thought how torn he might be waking up without a son?"

"..Not a day has passed that I haven't been thinking about mom and dad..."

A crestfallen tune played as Jack's focus moored toward the only lit window, way ahead past his old room's desolate half-open door.. _The light was still so far... And he was still looking through that window... Just like three years ago..._ _Little had changed after all.._

".. I'm already nineteen, grandpa.. There's no turning back now.."

Gus didn't let Jack see how stunned his passivity was.

 _"Nineteen.. He said...?"_

But then his eyes narrowed, refusing to accept how a young one could be losing memory faster than Woody.

 _"Have you really forgotten...?"_

 _He really wanted to tell him, however now was not the time..._ Instead he took two measured steps back.

"Jack..."

The boy's head answered to his call, concern gaining ground on his expression while waiting for a sentence that never finished.

"Grandpa..?"

His grandfather had bolted his stare on the ground, corners of old eyes creasing as he searched for the words...

"... We've been havin' fun like this ever since ya were a lil' toddler.. Remember how back our time together goes?"

"Mm." Jack nodded... _but why did his heart miss a beat?_

"... I've always held back the wild animal in me whenever we threw punches, that's no secret... Gehehe..."

 _Of course and Jack knew that... If Gus went all out he could probably snap Jack like a twig in seconds... Unlike his robust grandfather, Jack's physical structure had never been his strong point. No matter how fired up Gus would get he'd always look out not to push it too far._

"... Today was a blast.. You really got the blood in these old veins boiling once more..." Gus finally raised his eyes to meet his own youthful reflection, "But next time... the one tryin' to keep up.. will not be you.."

"Huh!?" Jack's arms jolted as if they were in hot water, "Grandpa don't say that!" He stepped up to make a point, "You're still the strongest person I—"

"Jack..." _His gratitude conveyed through an inspiring smile.._ "Today I held back zilch..." _, he wanted Jack to smile as well,_ "This will be... our final duel."

Five quiet seconds did Jack's lips remain parted, and two more did the shimmer in his eyes linger. He lowered his head, respect in his grandfather's decision, "Alright. This is it then, huh..?"

"Yeh. Today we decide who's top dog in the family."

Gus's boot slid backwards to a guarded angle, his arm up and then lowering, wrist bent inwardly and thumb tucked tightly next to the edge of an extended palm. He goaded Jack.

"Come at me with everythin' ya have. If ya manage to get in even a single blow I'll—! GAAH~!" Gus seized his wrist, shuddering in his entirety, "CRAMP!"

"You're wide open!" Jack took off with a promising burst of speed, he'd bestow a swift _coup de grace_ before his grandfather had to inflict more strain on himself.

" _Gehehe..." Gus's lower lip pulled down to bare a grin that reached his gums,_ "So naive!"

 _"I screwed up—!"_ Face shot with a rout, braking legs hardly decelerating the momentum, _too late for detours, there was only one way._

Gus' pincer hug cleaved a dust cloud _._

"Oi oi..!?" He was staring incredulously through his legs and behind him, view upside down. _Did that cheeky runt just slip right under him?_

"Man I thought I was a goner!" The reward for the reckless stunt were goosebumps, still fumbling himself to make sure he was whole.

"Che." Gus lifted himself with a worn wheeze, knuckle rubbing across his mouth as he pulled around, "Nimble Jack... Reeeally _nimble_.."

He praised through a mild aggravation.

"Hehe.." An upper hand in agility had been discovered here, evident in Jack's confident eye.

 _"Rotten tomatoes...!" Gus's lip winced, chin tugging with a problem here, "How do you even catch a mongoose?"_

If his grandson happened to capitalize in a battle of attrition it would end rather unceremoniously for the old man. He meticulously sized up his foe, pupils going down and back up, over and over. There had to be some sort of weakness, something he could use... _There..._ Eyes finally nailed it, and Gus could finally leer with an utter glee.

He stared up at Jack, who stared back at him not discouraged at all. A smirking contest with no meaning for Gus, because one of the two had already won. The grandfather's boot kicked back with a sweep.

"—?!"

Jack was robbed of his footing and landed clumsily on his side, _what even was that!?_

"WAAAAH—!"

A layer of pure white flushed on him, not an exaggeration to say his lifespan was cut ten years shorter from the image that burnt into his cornea.

 _Two hundred pounds of an airborne Gus._

"Goboh..!" Vainly did Jack attempt to scamper away, he was already buried neck-deep under that body slam.

"Hah!" Gus gloated with a lesson in his glare, "Many will try to pull the carpet from under your feet! What will you do then? Cry..?" He mocked with a face, "Whine how it was not fair..?"

"Ku..h" His lungs couldn't even reach for air, much less for words. _He had been tricked... again._

"If ya think a shrimp like you is ready to take on the world you are in for a nasty cold wake up.. _shower..?_ " Gus blinked, slight vibrations underneath, _"What in the seven mountains.. is he really trying to..?"_

The flan of Gus's belly tingled as Jack's back muscles tightened and compressed together in his struggle.

 _"So you're not just all bones under there, mh..?"_ Gus leaned his head on a hand, Jack actually made for an entertaining cushion. "What's wrong? Ya can't even do a push-up with an old man sittin' on your back?"

"Ooph!" Jack was becoming flattened dough again, he couldn't do it. Gus was simply the champion of heavyweight champions.

"Can ya smell it Jack?" Gus's prickly mustache took a big sniff next to his ear, "Smells like victory..!"

 _But the next moment... The mustache started to curl away from his grandson_

 _"...Oh crap...!"_

 _There was retaliation in Jack's eyes, and it was reaching critical mass._

 _"You asked for it!" His elbow cocked_

"GUOH—!"

 _The flan had been scooped._

.

.

* * *

 _19.03.17_

 _End of CH.8_

 _P.S: Don't forget to drop a review! Share your opinion with me, it always keeps a writer going!_ _~TBC_


	9. A thing too fragile

**_A/N_** _: New update at last! Not getting enough free time to write these days._

 ** _Rating:_** _T_

 ** _Disclaimer:_** _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

 ** _Chapter 9. A thing too fragile - Prelude: Part 5_**

.

.

 _"Nice thinking Matt..." Away from the dangers of the family's internal affairs, an inner monologue, "Why wouldn't locking yourself outside the house wearing pajamas on winter morning be a good idea? Do tell.."_

 _His mouth stirred with embarrassment, giving the blatant stupidity an astounding eleven out of ten._

The self-hug had holed into underarms to prevent whatever little warmth remained from flowing out. Just how much longer was it gonna take for Gus and Jack to duke it out anyway? Their past brawls wouldn't last half as much, were they going at each other for real or something? Frankly they _had_ been making quite a ruckus inside, a situation giving birth to dark questions about the current state of the living room... _the glimpse of ruin he just had was actually worthy of turning on the waterworks in him.._ On the bright side, it was one hell of a reliever his wife wasn't coming back for another couple of days, he'd have every last bit of the house sparkling clean by then, a good opportunity to have his housekeeping survival skills finally acknowledged by Sheila, _maybe earn him some loving appreciation as a bonus?_

Still, what were they doing in there? They had fallen quiet for a while now..

Every time the hand on his watch made a full revolution one minute appeared to be more and more like an endless hour, the doctor clearly unable to stand the pace not knowing what's going on. For the first time in his life Matthew wished Gus would just open the door and give him that tacit _sissy_ eye and whatnot for being _the chicken_ he was. None of that mattered as long as the knob rotated and clicked, the sweet sound that'd allow him to worm his way back inside; to his recliner, his newspaper, his coffee, the ordinary and uneventful actors of his mornings. He'd smile at the thought if it weren't for a frown disallowing him, concern accumulating downwards, his slippers a wall too thin to protect him from the refrigerator he stood on.

 _"Warm thoughts, warm thoughts, warm th—"_

"Come, come now Duchess, be a goood girl!" An old woman's excessively screechy and drawn out articulations, grating at the ears.

 _"...This isn't happening..."_ Matthew's view traipsed from his feet, to the set of stairs, then made a stop on the last step to mentally prepare for a second —his glasses cut to the sidewalk— _oh... ohh... and there it was..._

...the ball of brown fur padding briskly on its short paws like it was trying to strut out, a pace so elegant it made Matthew's eye bend out of shape.

 _"Give me a break.."_

Even its damn hand-sized head was high on a pedestal, _almost with the air of a snob_. A seemingly gorgeous and well-trained pekingese lapdog, if it weren't for a single issue. _Matthew becoming allergic in the mere idea of an animal being anywhere near him._

The fact _they_ were here must've meant the clock just ticked at 10 a.m., the punctual time Matthew's wrinkly saggy-cheeked neighbor would leave her house to go for a morning leisurely walk, a habit apparently resilient to tedium even after seventy-two years of bachelorhood. For what's worth, Matthew firmly believed that her notorious animal loving personality —particularly, the twenty-seven domesticated cats, _likely all of them unvaccinated,_ running wild in her house— was the sole reason society had shunned her somewhere down the road. _Why would anyone even want to be friends with someone fawning over hairball-spitting fleabags?_

 _...That definitely lacked morals of him... He quickly regretted treading into such a reasoning. Perhaps ill-willed and masked thoughts like this one was what Jack hated living with in the first place._

He flinched when the petite companion actually caught his scent and pinpointed him in an instant, for not a hunting dog it surely had a nose to boast for.

"Duchess?"

Despite its owner trying to keep it going on the leash the pet had halted in its tracks and no one was telling it otherwise. A wicked low growl started to pour from its snout, sheen of menace rising in dark-orbed pupils. _Could it be this fur ball was somehow able to sense his cynic mind?_ He flew the thought. _Meh, no way.. right?_ Whatever the case, now hell was about to break loose.

"DUCHESS! DUCHEEEESS!"

The old woman had trouble controlling her dog, it had gone completely berserk pouncing on a stretched leash, obviously out to rip the doctor to shreds. _What a gush of irritating yapping barks it was spitting at him..._ A thing so small, yet so passionate to challenge Matthew and bring him to justice. _Ridiculous_. Even so, its owner's distressed calls were ultimately enough for the dog to tuck its tail under and crouch back to her, almost with the awareness how it had been a bad child. Matthew could not find any other word to describe the situation as any less than yet again, _ridiculous._ The woman finally addressed the source upsetting her companion.

"H-Hey Mrs. Parston!" He put on an artificial smile, "Nice weather we got today hu—"

"GOOD GOD!" The old lady gave an infected huff as soon as she yielded half a look at his bedtime garments. She skipped off the greeting on short notice.

 _"Well fine with me! That makes TWO of us."_

Matthew winced in his frustration, he was swallowing a big nasty pill here to abide by the social decorum, _what a hag_. However he then happened to remember something and frustration gave place to a smirk.

 _"...but guess who's administering your knee shots next week..!"_

The doctor's glasses flashed a sadistic glint as he stared into an unwrapping palm _._

"Kuhu.." In those hands, which could not brag superior physical strength like his father's, there was still power. "Kuhuhuhu...!"

Maybe not today, maybe not this year, but someday he'd make them all come to witness the greatness of those hands.

 _"Hey.. Ya think your old man finally lost it?"_

 _"Beats me.. That's one weird laugh though.."_

 _"Weird doesn't even begin to cut it I'mma 'fraid.."_

Grandfather and grandson were quiet bystanders in Matthew's looming dark clouds of upcoming dictatorship. Jack was not even sure what expression to wear, but for Gus, watching his son act like he had a loose screw was simply nerve-racking.

"MATTHEW!"

"Gaa~ah!" Gus's harsh yell landed like a thunder on him.

"Dad, what gives?" Jack was still on the fence how to feel about it.

That was something Matthew was not inclined to elaborate on. He sighed all of his air, nearly on a cardiac arrest..

"What's wrong with you two? Half an hour? I thought I was going to turn into a popsicle!"

"...Ah" Gus let his glare slide, "Guess that 'splains it.. Ya always were kinda oversensitive to cold.." _and there was the cocked sissy eye,_ "..even if it be a mornin' breeze."

Jack himself succumbed to a couple of nods, going down a long checklist of factual examples.

Ohh... so it was two against one then.. Like father like _grandson.._ but more importantly, the alarming issue here was that Jack was siding with Gus. For some reason, their mutual standpoint was an oddity on the brink of unburying envious syllogisms.

.

 _Why would Jack feel more comfortable around Gus than with him? Why had he raced to the city as soon as his grandfather dangled a letter at him, when in three years he had not taken one step to see his father? Why did he look so elated when he realized Gus had arrived, to the point he would rather have a fight than be in his father's safe arms? When did Jack develop such a bond with his crude grandfather? They hardly ever got to see each other once in a blue moon. Where had Gus gone right and where had he gone wrong? Was Jack still angry at him for trying to push his ideals over his? Did he like Gus better for being a farmer from Leaf Valley, a faraway land he'd never seen? Natural curiosity about the unexplored then? Questions piling up atop more questions. Matthew was not a man easy to sentimentalize, but the feeling from seeing Jack and Gus being close and buddy-like, was simply..._

 _._

"So uh.. Did you two work things out?" _Those were not the words he wanted to say._

"Ah." Gus grappled Jack's neck and easily subdued him into a head lock, zero chances for escape, "It's all water under the bridge."

Jack was ruffled but he did not dare to complain, this was a consequence he had to endure. His grandfather's scolding eye whispered at him a piece of advice.

 _"Never punch a guy in the gut Jack.. The gut is everything.. The fatter the gut.. the better the dump._ "

". . . . ."

An idle line of thought travelled above Jack's head, totally boggled how his grandfather's mouth suddenly peeled and his front teeth touched with a gleeful lightness. _Even the tips of his mustache were tingling?_

A ringing tune scattered from inside the house and startled the party. _The phone._ Matthew had already jostled through Gus and Jack.

"Hey!" Gus quickly caught on his role at playing offended, "Ye're not gonna get to tackle my years if ye're always on the edge like that!"

"Just roll over and die then!"

"Aww.. Now he's squealing like a piglet.."

Gus just adored how his pushover son could probably punch a hole in the wall right now. Too bad they didn't broadcast such reactions on the box, he'd be a devoted audience for sure.

"Doctor Blackwood speaking."

Matthew was ready to start sweating any second the receiver spoke, this was likely an emergency call from work that required him to lend his experience and skill, _probably another Sunday morning speeding accident with another intoxicated young driver bleeding all over the operating table. Whatever the case, any plans for his day-off were about to go down the drain, his duty as a doctor a priority above all else._

"O-Oh..! Hey hon!" His head bumped against the wall and glued there, relief. "Yeah yeah, you got me.. Didn't expect you to call this early. Everything good right?"

Mute seconds passed while keeping his ear attached on the handset. _Stories about_ _jungles, waterfalls, campings, wildlife photos.. he lost the count after a while.._ _Good_ , _good,_ all sounded like his wife's ordinary call, no reason to be sitting like a cat on hot bricks...

 _He blinked and bounced off the wall._

"W..What do you mean you're coming home today!?— No no I was just...—" Matthew was losing his color as she raised her voice. His hair spiked. "TODAY IS WHAT!?"

His figure skewed to zap through the calendar on the wall, _a calendar that had already served its annual purpose._

 _"This can't be.. How did_ that _manage to slip my.._ — Ughh no no honey! Of course and I haven't forgotten. I mean.. _How_ could I forget, right?"

 _He in fact had. Matthew covered his mouth, he couldn't let anyone hear about this._

"Yeah.. Yeah, I promise.. This time we're actually going to him.. No more phone calls or sappy letters. We're going there." She finally sounded more calm, "Uh.. Okay.. Evening it is then.. Love you.."

She hung up, but Matthew was pulling at his hair.

A husky and skeptical breath that did not belong to him made his eyes shoot up and snap around. The other standing there was staring into the distance, a grim look on his face.

"..I didn't mean to eavesdrop on you but.. It's just when I realized you were talking with my daughter-in-law, and not the clinic, I thought about saying a _hi_ to her, poke my nose between you and the phone with my goofy antics and all.."

Things had suddenly taken a turn for the worse.

"Don't worry, Jack ain't here. I told him to fetch me a beer from that kiosk around the corner. You know I always feel like a beer after getting worked up, so.."

Words would not come to Matthew, not while Gus was going on about Jack's errand, and certainly not now that he was finally lugging an eye at him, an eye suggesting that even a vowel's interruption would end really bad.

".. We're all human, we're not perfect.. Just like what you said.. each and every one of us comes with their own set of flaws."

Matthew could not fathom what was going through his father's mind, though the words he had chosen to start out were giving him chills.

".. I for one have a bad habit to pull tricks on my friends, _god damn_ do I have a sailor's mouth, and being the man I am I've got my own issues to break my head over. Like why I'm scared to show how chubby I've been getting year after year and why I so much try to hide it from others."

Matthew's throat went up and down in discretion, why was Gus confessing to him all of a sudden? And why was he tensing up listening to those things? Gus slowly raised the back of his index finger at his son's face.

"But not once in my life... Not once in sixty years... Have I told a _lie._ "

Eyes widened and gave away how deeply the last phrase rippled in him, Matthew's expression had betrayed his thoughts rather easily.

Gus's stare released Matthew from asphyxiation as he glanced away, not because he wanted to, but because he couldn't bear to watch that guilty irredeemable look in his son's silence.

The old farmer spotted something interesting sitting on the wooden drawer chest, just next to the phone. He couldn't exactly remember how they called that thing, it was a pendulum of some sort with a single row of hovering balls that were meant to swing. Gus was about to crack his skull.. _Oh,_ _Newton's cradle..! Or was it cuddle..? Names, whatever._

"People lie, because it is convenient. You might start with a small lie to get you off the hook, you tell yourself it's a harmless one-time thing and you won't have to do it ever again.. But at this point, you're still not aware of it.."

Gus lightly pulled one of the metallic balls sideways and let it collide with the rest.

 _It was not the first time Matthew was seeing how the cradle worked. You pull one sphere and let it swing, then you see how energy and momentum are conserved and passed on the opposite end with minimal losses. As a result the two spheres on the opposite ends keep going back and forth in alternation... Yet why was he looking at the repeated effect as if something was amiss..? The more he tried to focus on it the more the sound seemed to get sluggish, the iterations slowing down. The sound was eventually ringing in his eardrums with a dull clunking impact that lingered. His vision was blurry, and his pupils dilated... What was happening?_

"...you're not aware that one lie.. will bring another. Before you even realize it, you're caught into a vicious cycle with no way out. You reach a point where you're not living your life anymore, but the very lie you put yourself in."

 _A vicious cycle.. just like..!_ Matthew stopped the spheres. A moment ago his father's eyes were scaring him shitless, now he was seeking those same eyes, a need to learn more from this farmer's way of living. Gus would not refuse him the path, he stared into him in return.

"Back then I told you I don't know how relationships in the city work.. but there's one thing I know for certain. That is, _the foundation stone_ upon which all relationships start to build on, be it a parent and a child, two lovers, heck, even a couple of rivals..."

"..What is it..?" He hesitated. _Communication, understanding, respect, good manners? It had to be one of those things._

"Honesty."

Matthew was struck numb, _"Honesty?"_

 _Well, yeah, of course.. Honesty was everything.._ Matthew himself had wanted Jack to be honest with him about his ends meet..

"When you start solid with honesty, you can go on and build on trust. Then that trust will allow you to truly bond with someone. When you tell lies, you know what happens to that trust, right?"

Matthew could do the reverse math. He shied away.

"Trust is a really fragile thing, it stands atop a roof that can cave in with a single dishonest word. It might take you years to earn someone's trust, yet only a moment to destroy all you've built on."

"..I guess so.."

Even half-heartedly, Matthew agreed. Gus hadn't really pulled a bunny out of a hat like he had expected him, but instead he had backtracked to the very basics.

"That said, you wanna come clean out of this mess?" Gus stretched his neck to take a better look at what was under that withdrawn face.

"Yeah, of course I do.."

"Good. Then first thing you do is tell my daughter-in-law you lied to her about not forgetting—"

"What?! You must be joking.."

"Cut that yammerin'. I raised you to be a doctor, not a politician. You apologize to Sheila. She will slap you a new one but there won't be any more mist between you. Take my word that you'll feel a lot better being true to her than carrying the stupid lie with you for the rest of your life."

Matthew shook his head in compliance, the ' _she will_ _slap you a new one'_ part sounded disturbingly much like a prophecy.

"Now.. I'll tell you one thing, and you better not take it lightly either."

Gus cast a glimpse along his shoulder and towards the door, he wanted to make sure Jack wasn't back yet, _kinda odd that he weren't_. Attention returned to Matthew who had his undivided attention.

"If _I_ am able to see through dishonesty.." Gus's thumb showed the door behind, "..your son out there can see it coming from a mile away."

Matthew blinked. _What?_ He almost grimaced this time, now this was taking it too far. _Jack? Who actually believed Matthew was going to start planting lawn due to a misunderstanding?_

"Yeah. I'm talking about Jack." Gus was not letting him take it with a grain of salt. "When you tell a lie to him he doesn't go with the flow because he's a _numbnut_ , it's because he _accepts_ that lie."

Matthew did not even begin to understand. This was all like a mountain of news to him. More importantly, how come Gus knew such a thing about Jack? _Something not even his parents did?_

Gus sighed and scratched his cap.

"Jack believes that everything in this world happens for a purpose, so even when you lie to him, he won't ask or judge you why you did it. He simply assures himself that you had a good reason for doing so, that something good can come even out of something like this.."

He was staring down at the floor with hands planted under the sides of a plump waist.

"... this is actually where his good heart kicks in, his _naivety_ you might say.. Because he refuses to let go of his trust in others, every time he _accepts_ dishonesty, _something_ he keeps for himself chips away."

" _Something..?" That was worthy a nobel for ambiguity.._ "What do you mean by that?"

"Hmph."

Gus finally mounted a smile, that was an answer Matthew would have to figure for himself.

"All those words you said to me back there about you and Jack.. Those were _true_ words, I could see it in your pain, in your grief.. However, I'm not the one that needed to hear those words the most.."

 _Gus was suggesting someone else, and Matthew knew who he meant.._

"He's a kind person, if you open up to him, your bond will be good as new."

"You think so..?" Matthew drew his brows, he smiled.

Gus nodded, _'believe you can reach it and you're already there'_ was what the confidence in his eyes said.

"Anyway, looks to me ya got enough on your plate for the day as it is. Why don't ya lemme borrow Jack for an hour or two till ya prepare everythin'?"

Knuckles joined overhead and cracked in anticipation for Jack's return as he departed from the room.

"It's a strange feeling, that even after sixty years.. I could once again fulfill my duty as your father.."

Matthew watched with reserved awe, only proud to be the son of such a great man.

"I get it now, why you visited all of a sudden.. you remembered today Jack is—"

"Mh..." He grunted.

 _Of course, Jack could be standing outside after all..._ "Dad, bring Jack home by evening, try not to wander too far."

"Oh!" Half of Gus's face popped back through the door's entrance, "Third time's the charm Matthew! How 'bout ya just start callin' me dad from now on?" He disappeared before an answer.

With Gus and Jack out of the scene Matthew could only direct his attention back to the living room. The coating rack was broken, clothes would be found laying on the floor on his every step, the carpet had been yanked from under the furniture, chunks of mud everywhere... _Was that a plunge-like crack on the floor?_ Surely an asteroid had landed in the living room. To top it all, he had to tell his wife he lied to her. Matthew donned a bright smile, he had come to terms with the outcome.

"I'm so dead."

[...]

Jack was standing with his back against the mailbox, still collecting his breath.

 _On his return trip he bumped on an old lady with a small dog and caused a big mess. At first she got the wrong idea and criticized him harshly about drinking beers and stumbling on people early in the morning, which was an awkward train to explain.. Nevertheless, he immediately volunteered to help the old woman gather her shoppings which were scattered on the pavement, most of it bags of dry cat food. He knew she was an animal person. She warned him to stay back because her dog wasn't fond of anyone besides her, and screeched when Jack actually approached the little thing against her warnings. However her dog didn't even growl a threat, only tilted its head at a scent that was strangely familiar. Jack started to pet its back with a characteristic brush of his hand. To her shock the dog instead of biting off a finger climbed its paws up on the boy's knees, barking happily and wagging its tail. When the speechless old woman asked for Jack's name, her eyes welled up._

 _"Jackie..? My dear Jackie, where have you been all this time?"_

 _"Mrs. Parston and Duchess haven't changed one bit!" He partly stifled a laugh._

There was still an issue though, which was the undelivered beer in his hand. Just as he began to wonder if the refreshment would even be drinkable after his long delay it went missing from his possession.

He popped the can, gulped it all in one go, crumpled it.

"BUUUU~RP!"

Jack's hair blew back and turned into stalactites _"..Whoa!" That had to be a new record, Gus was still getting better at it._

"I got permission from your old man to take ya for a spin. I promised if ya could strike a single hit I'd give ya somethin', remember?"

"You did?"

"Uh, I was goin' to... But y'know.. I got that _cramp_ before I could finish..

Jack scowled recalling the crafty play, but it slid from his face as soon as he connected the next thought, "..Where are we going then?"

Gus wrapped an arm around Jack's shoulder and clapped his skinny chest, he had a good idea how to make those muscles grow.

"I think today I'm gonna make a _hiker_ out of ya!"

.

.

* * *

 _17.04.17_

 _End of CH.9_

 _~TBC_


	10. An old bear

**_A/N_** _: Short update! Getting pretty close to the prelude's end! I want to thank everyone who's been reading this far!_

 ** _Rating:_** _T_

 ** _Disclaimer:_** _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

 ** _Chapter 10. An old bear - Prelude: Part 6_**

.

.

"Ye're fallin' behind _boy scout_!"

The shouting sounded like a full home-run away,

"Ha.. Haa..."

His breathing was getting out of sync,

"Hey.. wait... wait up for a sec...!"

When Gus said he'd give him something, he certainly wasn't expecting it to be something like _this_.

Jack was struggling to grab a hold of whatever he could, quite unsuccessfully to his grievance. _He looked up, uncertainty returning to his eyes._ There were a few crooked tree branches he could reach to, in fact his lone helping hands for pulling through, but they were almost forbiddingly often equipped with disguised thorns that'd pierce through his gloves as if they were made from paper. He'd already learnt the painful way they could be deceitful helpers _,_ not a chance he was doing _that_ again.

 _...He really wished he didn't have to look back down... He had to._

His eye stretched, unable to take in what was down there. A thick vegetation housing all sorts of suspicious-looking plants, plants that would not rarely flare up to his neck. _Like now_. A dilating pupil delved deeper into the steep greenery, _with a cornered mouth and a drop of sweat alongside it_. He wondered if it were prudent of him to take a guess at what a bunch of things could be hiding inside that shifty hodgepodge of huge veiny leaves and rustling bushes. _Probably nothing sort of a thing from a man-eating plant movie... right...?_

He quickly related to a similar experience, how this was no different than his first trip to the sea; The farther open he'd go on the harmless shallow beach while on foot, the more he'd slowly but surely come to feel like he was getting shorter, eventually reaching a point where the deep sea was the one having power over everything. The guarding waves brushing by his nose were practically telling him that the rules of the land did not apply past this point. Either he was going to heed the warning and turn tail, or he'd stop counting on his toes and learn to go by the rules. It was all the same, except for a detail...

 _This wasn't the sea, and he wasn't learning how to swim either._

He didn't even know if the next blind step would find him with a root sticking out from the soil that was there to snare his foot. _No doubt Gus would drop down rolling and busting tears upon discovering Jack hanging upside down in a tangled mess._ No way he was gonna let that happen _._ The inexperienced boy had been scraping through a path that was indiscernible at best, he was walking on a really narrow tightrope to avoid nature's pitfalls, and yet he could swear he'd seen Gus breezing into this jungle-like environment like it was a stroll in the bathroom. _How was he doing it?_

Jack was trying to ward off a branch blocking his way, he had to push through somehow. _But it was really stubborn, like it had an unbending will of its own._

"Guaah!" It whipped him in the face like a lash.

He was tossed on his back, right into the overgrown foliage he was trying to avoid as well. While laying over the dirt all four limbs were sprawled, he didn't have the strength to collect them, _because this was utter defeat._ He was just an enthusiastic amateur suddenly thrown into the wild. Jack hadn't been expecting to pass his hiker's test with bright colors, though neither had he imagined he'd be so bad at it as to hit rock bottom. He was just dead weight.

 _The sky rumbled. He couldn't see the clouds through the green umbrellas he'd been swallowed under, but they were definitely gathering up there. The weather forecast hadn't said anything about expected rain in the city, but then again, this wasn't the city... The rumbles steadily dispersed to far-flung destinations, not much later he could hear the pelting start on the leaves above. His dead weight was about to become soaking wet as well._

 _"...?"_

 _The broad leaves were actually preventing the rain from pouring on him, diverting the streams to canals around his resting nest. It was a mystery, the surroundings that just a moment ago were hostile to him, were now offering him shelter. The drizzle was making a beautiful sound on the flora, different from the sound the rain would make on his window back home. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but it sounded more vivid and natural, like a glass barrier was not meant to stand between someone and this sound. It was actually.. lulling him.. Jack wouldn't need a sheep count to welcome a nap, he was a fast sleeper. A strange infatuation was taking over his smiling face, he fancied he could stay there till the rain was over. Hands had already shoved under his head to make a pillow._

 _"..I could get used to this.. Wonder if I'd turn into a mushroom over the night though.. Hehe.." He didn't want this break to end, but he had a man to catch._

Jack sat up with a crunch. Curling one knee up to his chest he shuffled the messy bangs, his readiness to take a nap in a place like this was surprising even him. Sitting with a contemplating elbow on his knee waiting for an opening in the rain's tempo to make a run, his eye was attracted by a puddle. It had been quickly forming into a small pool from a few leaves that happened to be depositing the raindrops to a single spot. He crawled over to it, maybe he could make out his reflection in the water's mirror.

Jack blinked, caught unawares. His face wasn't the only one in the reflection. The critter was making shy movements to drink water.

 _"Oooh! A raccoon!?"_

He was thrilled. This must've been a rare kind of raccoon too, it wasn't gray like the robbers he'd seen in the city's trash bins. It was mostly black with two white stripes running along its back. _It was also quite smaller-looking._

"Hey Jack can ya hear me?" It was Gus, he sounded in a hurry, "I chased off a dam' skunk, I think it fled your way!"

 _"A skunk..?"_ Jack's lack of knowledge painted on his face as he curiously observed the critter, its paw was backing off at Gus's intimidating voice.

"Don't let that thing near ya! It sprays something _nasty_ from its ass, you'll stink for a week!"

"...Oh" Jack hesitantly looked back again... It was already aiming him with the rear, "Please don't..." _His eyes begged._

The skunk's ear twitched at Jack's plea, it was actually shying its nose over to him.

Right now Jack felt like he had thrown a coin in a fortune shrine and his wish had come true, this little fella was actually...

 _Jack's smile turned to a blank triangle, the skunk's intentions divulged in a single cocked eye._

 _Apathy._

 _[...]_

Gus was standing close to a pine tree waiting for the sky to run out. Just when he'd thought the rain was going to stop, coming down light for a few seconds, it turned on the volume again, _quite the indecisive downpour_. He stopped bouncing the pine cone in his hand.

"Looks like it ain't lettin' up.. Guess better go find Jack before he gets lost and—"

"SWEET HAMSTERS ON A WHEEL! _—IT STINKS!_ "

The old man split his glance at the tall plants down the slope, they were stirring left and right like a skirmish had broken out in the lower layers. Gus's smiling mustache was making an educated guess.

 _"Bet ya didn't see a hamster like that comin."_

Jack came out of the plants ducking, then launched an almost frantic sprint as soon as he located Gus.

"Gahaha see?" The praising grin beamed, his grandson was finally catching up, "Ya really _can_ do it when ya put your back into—..."

Gus's nostril twitched, the shape of his left eye distorted, he was suddenly standing in the blast of a wind.

"HOOOOLY CRAP _—_ IT BAPTIZED YA!"

He took a dive behind the pine tree as if to take cover from a grenade. _Ain't no way he was messing with that shit._

Jack was sulking angrily at him with drooped shoulders. _Damn... Gus had to say something, didn't he?_

"Well I, uhh..." His voice was a pitch higher as he'd been pinching his nose, barely sneaking a peek from behind the trunk, "Look at it on the bright side.. No bear will dare come near us.."

Jack sighed, that was actually not making him feel any better.

"When you said we were going for hiking you didn't mention the bit about ' _through the forest and up the mountain'_..."

That was enough of him acting like a mouse, he stepped out of hiding with guiltily shrugging arms.

"I said _I'd make a hiker out of ya,_ so what a man of my word would I be if I didn't make ya one?"

The drawn pout was not falling off Jack's mouth, his crafty grandfather was obviously beating around the bush with that one.

"So..?" _Gus was shaping a grin,_ "What do'ya think?"

 _A grin looking with anticipation._

He knew a measly skunk wasn't going to hold back his grandson from having fun. Those stubbornly crossed arms and musing eyes, only partially successful in not breaking their secluded focus, _were the living proof that Jack's genes could not lie._

"Nature sure has its own way to greet newcomers like me, doesn't it?" He smiled up warily.

"Gahahahaha! A real charmer isn't she?" Gus invited him with a pull of his chin as he turned around, "But trust me, once ya get to know each other she'll be a skirt ya can't keep away from."

Jack frowned benignly as he followed up the hill, _his grandfather was in love with nature_ , that was the feeling he was getting. Honestly? He was starting to see where he was coming from. The skunk's smell was god-awful, but at least it was a real and unique experience, almost a refreshing change from the everyday vapors in the city.

"It'll probably wear off in an hour."

"Huh.. What?" Jack retraced his course with a blink.

"The skunk's _number_ on ya. It'll wash off with all that rain, so don't worry 'bout it."

 _"W-Whoa.."_

Jack was awestruck.

 _"Did he just read my mind?"_

He stopped walking, he had to make sure.

 _"Let's see... I'll try to imagine..."_

 _Something hard for Gus to read..._

 _"Right!" He tapped his palm with a fist._

 _"Nature with a skirt!"_

 _But how was nature supposed to look like? Would she be like a human, or maybe more like an elf with pointy ears? Nah, it had to be a fairy that lived deep in the forest. One that'd flutter her wings and magic dust would make trees grow in a jiffy._

 _Jack was sightseeing the stars... That'd actually be..._ so cool.

Gus had stopped with a lifted knee against the slope. He briefly shared the skyscraping gaze to see what Jack found so enchanting about the rainy sky. Nothing but clouds up there... _Which means.._ Gus looked back at his grandson, there was probably something else on a lower altitude, actually, _right above Jack's head..._ "I'm sure that's a pretty bubble you got puffin' there, but daydreamin' can wait for later."

 _And the bubble burst, "I knew it!"_

Jack was certain now, Gus had mind-vision powers.

"Come over 'ere and take a look."

Gus was shaking his thumb next to a tree, _did he find something?_ Jack climbed the higher terrain with quick wide strides.

"See that?" He sneaked up on Jack's face from behind, who had already noticed what he should be focusing at, "Bear claws."

"Wh—! For real!?" Jack's alarms went off, "You mean you weren't kidding when you said that thing about keeping a bear away!?" He whipped his eyes around.

"GAAAHAHAHA" Gus did not expect a reaction any less hilarious, he placed the back of his wrists against his waist and pumped his back's wings, "I bet ye'd wanna see grandpa wrestlin' a bear, am I right?"

Jack stopped spinning his head, "You... You'd fight with a bear?"

A draft instantly took shape inside Jack's vivid imagination. _The bear had risen on its two paws to display its towering threat, it had to, because its opponent, even though a man, was equally ferocious. Gus stood his ground with torn clothes and scratches all over his body, yet the bear's claw was still no much for his skill and cunning. He would eventually dodge a wide slash and take this opening to sink his fist right into the bear's stomach. The large predator would whimper in pain and stand down, its head bowing to surrender. Above it, a man reigning supreme._

"Wanna know how I'd tackle it?" Gus crossed his arms and turned away with a smirking eye.

Jack was waiting with bated breath, hearing it from the man himself was gonna make his imagination fall utterly short.

"I swear I won't tell anyone."

His eyes showed a responsible person, he was taking that secret to his grave.

He looked around for any overhearing walls before hunching over to Jack's ear, the secret to defeating a bear was a big deal after all.

"Here's how it goes..." The grandfather's eyes were still and sharp, defining the urgency of the situation.

The grandson swallowed a knot in his throat, any moment now he and Gus would be sharing a secret for two.

"...I'd play possum..."

Gus lost sight of Jack. He had been brought to his knees, the air around him dark and heavy... _underwhelmingly heavy._

"What?" Gus shrugged his shoulders, "Y'know how a bear looks from up close? The ones they show on the box are cute compared to the real thing. Ye're better off playin' dead and hope it doesn't maul ya."

 _Well, it made sense... Who'd fight a bear for real anyway? Gus was a man, not the superhero from an action movie like he'd made him out be. Jack's imagination had been running a little more wild than usual today._

"This mark is old though.."

Gus's experience as a tracker had spotted small details, like how the tree's skin had mended and the light pigmentation of the scratch had naturally faded in time, blending with the rest of the tree.

"..Probably as old as me.."

His hand was caressing the trunk, its texture was rough, it reminded him of his own crusty hands... _But Gus's caress was still gentle and soft._..

"I bet a proud bear was around here, _a very long time ago..._ " He stopped caressing the tree, but his hand never detached from it.

His grandfather's smile looked happy, but for some reason, those peacefully closed eyes were imparting something _bittersweet_ as well. _Was Gus reminiscing? Maybe days long gone by? This time Jack couldn't even bring himself to say 'grandpa' like he did before... Why?_

 _It was the second time today, his heart missed a beat._

 _._

 _._

* * *

 _29.04.17_

 _End of CH.10_

 _~TBC_


	11. The city of buds

**_A/N_** _: Long chapter as the backstory is reaching its climax! Enjoy the read and see you at the bottom :)_

 ** _Rating:_** _T_

 ** _Disclaimer:_** _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

 ** _Chapter 11. The city of buds - Prelude: Part 7_**

.

.

Gus had removed his cap to fumble it for whatever it was causing that annoying _tickling,_ the steadfast glare he wore almost bearing the exigency of an operation. He could tell something had been trying to crawl into his hair about the same time he came out of the plants, but now that itch was just becoming too greedy for its own good.

 _"Well damn.."_ He was only half-astonished, _"Talk about buggin' my head.."_

He brought the tiny grasshopper on his finger closer to his eye with a threat. The little insect flinched from the vengeful aura emanating from Gus, _it had obviously picked the wrong ride._ Thankfully it was allowed to spring away, _and reflect._

"Hm..?" Kind of a question popped while fixing the bill of his cap, like a compass to point south, "What's with the long face?"

Jack barely rose distant lids, he seemed catatonic and not really in the mood to get up.

"Aah I know..." Gus scratched a slouched nape, "Ye're bummed we're not gonna get to see a bear, ain't ya?" He nodded the flimsy letdown.

 _"No.. that's not.."_

 _Why could he still not give his words voice..? What he really wanted to say after seeing his grandfather resting with such a saddening smile against the tree... Even if only for a moment, it appeared... that Gus was leaving something behind..? A parting that Jack's conscience advised against asking just to alleviate his own concern._

"It be a pity for sure, but ya can't let it pull yer spirits down." His gaze travelled upwardly with a glint, "This is where the real fun begins!"

 _"...Huh?"_ Jack finally seemed to cast his thoughts aside, "What do you mean? Aren't we already there?"

"Gehehehe..." His whole body was chuckling, Gus was obviously plotting something... He turned around to show him, finger pointing the sky, "We're always aimin' for the top!"

"The top..?" He looked puzzled, _it was still raining?_

"That's right... _The mountaintop!_ "

This time his focus went not up but on the background of Gus's finger, through an ascending trail decorated by towering pine trees that stood side to side, a mountain forest so thick it looked like morning couldn't penetrate the gloom... _That's what he meant._

 _Jack's mouth was uneasy, "Must... not... falter..."_

 _[...]_

 _It had already been fifteen minutes since they set off under the rain and into the dusky forest. For a man at the age of sixty his grandfather had some impressive stamina deposits and an undaunted resolve, nothing would pose much of an obstacle before his march. He kept going ever up without even a suggestive slowdown in his pace. Jack's legs had already been burning away from the strenuous bushwhack from before, going up the mountain's top was going to turn them into charcoal. Well... At least he could put the rusty fireplace at the inn to good use, it seemed to have been out since the stone age._

"Woah—!"

Distracted while entertaining his hopelessness Jack's foot had slipped in dead reaction time.

A strong grip was already on his wrist, Gus had been keeping a close eye on him.

"Don't let that mattress of leaves fool ya, the rain's cookin' the mud below."

Jack exhaled a ton off his chest, this could have been bad.

"Right, I'll be looking out from now on."

With the next step he was checking the ground for being suspiciously squashy, and he'd do it _carefully_. Gus was about to start laughing through his nose, his grandson was producing noteworthy antibodies to slippery ground.

"Should'a brought ya a trekkin' pole. Y'know, the stick old guys like me _ain't_ using."

Perfect timing to be scratching his already wounded confidence. Jack's smirk was tentative as he had been shyly keeping a question on the back of his head.

"Hey.. Do you.. Do you go for this hiking stuff back on the village as well?

 _"Oh crap..!" A dirk was stabbing Gus's spine out of nowhere._

"I mean, you know.. Leaf Valley?"

 _"Oh crap oh crap oh crap!"_ The dirks were multiplying, _"He's asking about Leaf Valley! What the hell I do!?"_

The corner of his eye was sweating, Jack looked so modest asking yet also curious to know.

 _Say a word about Leaf Valley when Jack was around?... Gus could already tell who was throwing the dirks at him, it was Jack's father whose expression was about to blow from a sheer schizophrenic rage. For some reason he was dead certain that Gus slipping whispers about Leaf Valley to Jack was the equivalent of trying to brainwash his son with tall tales, to lure him into the darkest of alleys and give him wild ideas about shooting to be a farmer._

 _That was apparently the nightmare visiting Matthew every night and also what slapped him awake in the morning with sticky pajamas. Matthew had wanted Jack to aim for office jobs, he was already bending his standards to swallow Jack going part-time, but becoming a farmer? It was the inconceivable opposite of what he wanted him to be. On the few times Gus would visit to spend time with Jack, the one unspoken condition Matthew had set in order to grant permission for a gamble that was already risky, was for Gus to keep a tight zip on his mouth about that place._

 _Leaf Valley was taboo._

"H-Hey wanna hear a joke?"

 _"..Eh? ..Awha..?" Jack's brows tilted off balance and into a frown, not the answer he was expecting._

"It's about where the sayin' _not out of the woods yet_ came to be... _'Not out of the woods'_ like, look around us. Get it? _Get it?_ GAHAHAHAHA... Haha!..Ha..."

 _"...Changing the subject huh?"_

 _Jack was genuinely frustrated, his grandpa would always come up with something to throw off his curiosity about Leaf Valley. Ever since he was little, ever since he could remember his grandpa's earnest laugh, all he had dreamed was to hear stories about Leaf Valley, anything would do. How work in the fields is like, how cutting wood in the forest is like, how taking care of animals is like... He had never asked for a thing in his life, and even after all those years, Gus still refused him a favor this small as if it were a forbidden fruit. He was actually hopeful that his grandpa's idea to go hiking was the long-yearned moment where he'd finally break his silence and share stories about Leaf Valley._

 _It was one of the very few times Jack said it was fine to let himself get pissed._

"WOHOHO! T-THAT'S THE SPIRIT!"

Gus was suddenly making a run for it, all to avoid Jack's shoe from going like a pickaxe in his ass.

" _Now_ ye're doin' it like a champ! ... _Holy onions I'm gonna burn that sack of fat in no time if he keeps up like that!_ "

 _He wasn't sure if all that sweat was due to the fretful dashing he hadn't dared since his 20's, or the trigger he'd pulled on Jack's deep patience._

 _Almost there, Jack almost had him on the ropes. He'd corner his grandpa and have him spill every last bit about life in Leaf Valley._

 _But wait, Gus stepped to the side and disappeared behind a tree._

"Hey where are you..!"

An emerging light coming through the opening curtains of the trees showered Jack, who made a roof over eyes with his wrist. The rain seemed to have finally stopped too.

"Haa... Haaaa.."

Gus was out of breath, his back was hunched against the last pine tree, but even through his old age, fatigue and stress, he could still pull a vibrant grin.

"We made it..!"

The mountaintop it was.

Jack tried to fumble for a pout to wear, but there was hardly one he could find in him. He wasn't certain if Gus had after all merely tricked him to speed up their cumbersome journey, or if it were something else dissuading him to talk about Leaf Valley. Suspicion waned as his grandfather marched eagerly towards the edge of the mountain without a worry on his face. Jack shook his head and gestured shruggingly to himself, there was just no way winning with his grandpa. He'd let him off the hook, _for now.._

"HOLY PUPPIES IN THE HEAVENS!" Gus cringed with half a step back, "WHAT A CLIFF!"

"You're kidding." Jack hopped closer to take a look.

"Watch it!" Gus extended his arm to put the reckless grandson at bay, "We don't want ya droppin' like a barrel down on Flower Bud!"

Gus couldn't hide the recurring shock as he steered back, this must've been the steepest of cliffs he'd seen in a while, it was on par with Pike mountain's. The wind swishing by the peak was giving the old man more than a few chills to consider.

"Tell you the truth I didn't expect some _city mountain_ to amount to much, but god damn..!"

He just couldn't take his eyes off that scarp-like drop, not even a mountain goat would survive the fall and then the inevitable tumbling due to the gradient arc the cliff seemed to take while going down. Few rocks that were not firmly planted would dislodge and start tumbling down even now as he stood on the outlook. An appalling wince found Gus as he nonetheless watched the pebbles roll a really damn long way down with a fathomless dull impact in their echoes, through a serrated slope that looked like a sterile obsidian graveyard before the forest picked up again. Maybe rain was in fact a frequent phenomenon so high up here, so it had been eating away the mountain side through the years?

.

"... _What the..."_

 _Gus's eyes were widening with utter disbelief._

 _An unnatural mist was starting to gather over the scarp's grounds, as if a world of precipice was trying to conceal its deadly fangs._

 _...This was not Pike mountain, nothing like it at all..._

 _His mountain was untamed and harsh, but it'd never try to hide its true intentions._

 _The old man was not overwhelmed anymore, what his eye gazed with a guarded stillness down there..._

 _Was an enemy._

 _"This cliff shouldn't belong here... There's something off about it.. It's almost as if.."_

 _._

"So?" Jack seemed on high spirits after seeing such a sight, "What are we gonna do now that we got here?" His expression was filled with promise as he asked his grandpa, "Shout as loud as we can maybe?"

Gus's skepticism about the mountain was put on hold, pulling Jack's leg came first, _he was grinning_...

"Gramps I'll go first!"

What else could it be after coming all the way up here? _A shout contest._ Jack moved closer to the edge but also with a cautious distance in mind, knuckles extending and cracking in front of him. He'd shout so loud there'd be no room left for Gus to fight back.

"What do'ya mean what we're gonna do? Ain't that obvious?" Just as he was preparing he caught his grandpa's boots moving next to him, his hand was on the zipper of his... _pants?_ "We're takin' a leak."

"Ugh!" Jack was crushed on the ground by a tenfold gravity.

"Gahahaha! Kiddin' kiddin!" Gus was standing over the prostrate grandson, "Sheesh Jack, ye got no sense of humor. Kinda reminds me of your old m—..."

Attention fell on a detail on Jack's head, Gus remembered something he'd wanted to tell him on the way.

"Jack, ya need to lop off that shave brush." _He didn't like that sprouting ponytail._ "The wild look ya got goin' is all fine with me, 'bout time ya let yer hair grow, but this thing?... It's a god dam' tragedy."

Jack had flipped to a sitting position the moment he heard _'shave brush'_. His arms wrapped behind his head to make a shelter on his ponytail. He looked really upset with the characterization.

"It's not like it was _my_ idea you know! I—"

"Oh...?" Gus made out an embarrassed red across Jack's expression, "...a girl?"

Jack clenched his jaw, he was taken completely off guard.

"... girlfriend?" He latched on his chin suggestively.

"Just a friend." Jack sported a still embarrassed smile, but he made his point clear.

"Sorry, didn' mean to put ya in a tight spot.. What ya do with personal ain't my business after all." Gus shot his view on the horizon, "Show me around."

"Huh?" That took him by surprise again, "Show you around?" He was about to lift himself, but Gus sat on his knee instead, like a sentinel on the overlook.

"Yeah, the city. Looks like a maquette from up 'ere right? Easier to show me this way than takin' strolls through the crammed streets."

Jack mimicked his grandfather's sitting, he smiled as he spotted the first objective, "See over there? Second street from the bottom, right to the crosswalk?"

"Yeah." Gus drew the thick grey brows together, "That yer house right?"

"Right!" It was an easy one, Jack's head moved onto the next search, "Oh, over there, big building left to the park, large yard?"

"Uh.." He rubbed his beard, for a while lagging with unsure vowels, "Aw damn! That's yer elementary school! I remember takin' ya there on 4th grade!"

 _"...you remember that?"_ Jack's smile was cryptic, _but happy..._ He raised his eyes again, sighing from within with the next one, "Large complex to the west, long parking lot."

"Dad's clinic." Gus stretched his grin wide, he was satisfied at how quick he was with that one.

"Hahaha you're totally in the groove grandpa!" Jack sat down on his hips, arms firm on each side behind him to support his back.

Gus watched the smile brighten on Jack, _then how it toned down melancholically.._ The boy's mind was obviously not dwelling here, _not in the city_.

"Hey, think we can see the inn you stayin' from 'ere?"

Jack almost twisted his neck from the surprise _,_ "Um... Think so.. yeah." He stretched his eyes to find the mark, a couple of blinks were unavoidable. "The two hills across each other, way down to the south." Jack whipped to his grandpa's direction with uncontained eagerness, "See it?"

"Hold your horses, grandpa's eagle eye ain't as sharp as it used to be. _It's more like a quail's now..._ " Gus was trying to make binoculars with his hands, wrinkly eyes were squeezing from the effort. The further he looked the foggier it was becoming. "Wooh!" He gaped, "No shit! That tiny thing next to the windmills?"

"It's actually two floors, but yeah! That's the place!" Jack never broke his eyes from the south. But soon... _He would have to._

Gus let his arm rest on his knee, he had finished the scouting yet he wasn't speaking a word. It wasn't the inn which had put him in the stodgy mood, Jack's place was in fact quite the nice touch on the quaint hills... _It was something else that seemed to trouble him._

 _The south was indeed rural, not really a countryside, but it had a couple of farms, small looking but still farms, few meadows for the livestock to graze, even a riverbank to cast a line maybe... However, the bigger picture was that of a last fort. A last fort against the city. He couldn't tell for sure, but those things on the city side of the river appeared to be cranes and dozers. They were on standby, ready to flatten hills and meadows to pave the road for new infrastructure._ _A month? Two months? Gus could already see the city's tentacles slithering over that shallow riverbank. Urban development was apparently already holding ownership of the deed for the hillside._

 _The deed..._

 _His heart had forgotten how uneasy it should be.. The old farmer's mind had returned to Leaf Valley._

"They will be tearing down everything soon, along with the inn."

Gus wasn't even fazed by Jack's disclosure, his thoughtful eyes wanted to hear him out to the end, to hear out all those things Jack couldn't bring himself to say back at his father's house. _The way his grandson had been looking through his window was like a mute cry for escape.. Now, up here on a faraway mountain, where no soul but theirs existed, Jack was finally being able to open the locket of his heart._

"Dad probably already told you, but for the past three years I've been going around the city like a broken clock.. It's only been a month since I moved south. When the innkeeper told me of the situation I realized there wasn't much we could do, _it was already too late_ he said.. In spite of that he was so kind as to offer me a free lodging for the while they'd be packing up. The least I could do was to stay there and help everyone with the inn.. To help everyone treasure those last days, for as long as I could.. I don't know if it will be today, or tomorrow.. But when the inn is gone, I'll be out on the run again..."

Gus had been silently studying Jack who had curled knees up to his chest, his expression was quiet, but he was obviously suffering on the inside. _"The city is haunting you, isn't it, Jack..?"_

The grandfather looked up on the sky, the rain had ceased for a good while, _but the clouds wouldn't go away..._

"Wanna listen to a story?— Hey no bullshitting jokes this time, I swear!" He caught on time Jack's grumpy sulk, _he really wasn't in the mood for jokes._

"Alright." Jack quietly nested his muzzle between knees.

"Hmm, it goes like this... It's more of an urban legend actually, as such sometimes it'd be a story the ol' folk would tell their grandchildren before bed.. That's how I learned it, from yer great, great grandma..."

...

"They said there was once a huge valley,

surrounded by tall mountains that pierced the skies,

forests so green as if they had been taken out from a fairy tale,

yet the most enchanting thing about the valley weren't its mountains, or forests.

It was its mesmerizing blue flowers.

Myriads of blue flowers spreading as far as the eye could see,

a true heaven on earth.

The people thought it was a miracle,

to have been blessed with such beautiful flowers.

When they'd open their windows in the morning,

they were refreshed by the pleasant aroma

When they'd go out for work,

the petals' azure color cheered them up and filled them with energy.

...However during one spring,

out of nowhere

...The flowers stopped blooming...

The seeds would sprout like they always did,

yet the flowers would never become flowers...

...They just remained buds...

It was as if they were afraid to bloom,

as if they felt something bad was going to happen soon.

Through the years that followed,

the valley had turned into a city,

a city where the buds never bloomed."

.

.

 _Flower Bud city_

...

Gus finished a story that had been passed down through generations, curious to see what Jack thought of it, he opened his eyes.

The boy had frozen midway crawling to him, his eyes were washed out, lips hanging loose. _Jack was showered both in awe... and in fear._

"Well.. And seein' how things turned out, I think I understand how the flowers felt. The city soon fell into the maw of technology, everythin' was ripped apart, and nature was not a part of it anymore.."

Jack was still breathless, this hadn't sounded just like your run of the mill bedtime story... _The morals behind it felt uncannily real._

"But hey, it's just a story." Gus pated Jack on the head with his elderly affection, "Don't let it get to ya."

He was still stiff collecting his composure, with emotions even more tangled than before he dragged his knees up again.

"Grandpa.. Do you believe.. true _happiness_ exists somewhere?" _The words painted how hard it was for him to ask._

The question was left hanging in the air for a few seconds, Gus was without expression.

.

"..Happiness?"

"Yeah.. Happiness.. I think I'm still looking for it."

"Looking for it?"

"Yeah, once I find it,

I'll return to dad.

I'll show it to him.

Make him remember what happiness is like.

Then he might be able to show me as well...

To show me his smile again..."

"...Jack..."

.

"Grandpa..? You are.."

Gus was hiding his face behind an arm, he didn't want to let Jack see what it was about, but it all became clear when he was unable to withstand an overflowing sniff. Tears were trickling in streams down his cheeks, the rivers joined at his bearded chin, ample drops pattered his trousers.

Jack's concern crawled to tend to him, but his head was quickly snatched into his grandfather's strong arms. He felt warm.. soothed..

"I had it all wrong about you... I thought you left home because you couldn't get along with your old man.. But now I see.."

Gus released him from the emotional cuddle, he stared into Jack with a wet face and sore eyes, but the brightest grin as well.

"Jack, a man who fights for the sake of someone else's smile... That man... can call himself a _real_ man."

Gus still had a hard time coming around it, how his young grandson had surpassed his expectations in every way possible. Jack's way of living, the will to fight to make others smile... _Was a pillar of hope and inspiration._

 _._

 _"You don't realize it yet,_

 _but you are closer than you think in your quest._

 _The path you seek will be full of obstacles and hardships,_

 _but only then will you be able to understand what true happiness is._

 _Because happiness does not remain to be found._

 _If you are true to yourself,_

 _It will come to find you one day._

 _Jack, let this old man bring you a step closer."_

 _._

Jack watched his grandpa stand up, he looked like a whole new man. He fumbled the pouch on his waist, all whilst his attention was on Jack.

"As an apology for yelling to you back home, allow me to give you something in return.."

Gus offered his arm, something of peculiar shape was in his palm... _Oh..._ Jack waved a polite no thanks gesture.

"I'm really happy you want me to have this grandpa, but I think it's gone bad.."

"It's gone bad?" Gus had no idea what Jack was talking about, "The hell you sayin'?"

"That sweet potato?" Jack cautiously bent over it, "It's got holes in it, right h— GUAH!"

Gus floored him with his fist, a bull's steam blowing from his nasal vents. "A HUNDRED PUSH-UPS WHEN WE GET HOME!"

"Oww..." Jack was still seeing stars as he looked up "...!"

"This ain't no sweet potato, _bumpkin_. It's an ocarina." He held the protruding part close to his mouth while fingers positioned in a complex way above its holes. "Listen well, and memorize it."

Jack had never heard the word _ocarina_ before, was it an instrument of some sort? A flute? _Eh, probably the case..._ He rubbed his head with an unfortunate smile, now he knew why his grandpa got mad. He kind of insulted him calling the rare instrument _a sweet potato that had gone bad..._ Jack resigned on crossed legs, he'd just sit and enjoy his grandpa's... musician skills!

.

 _The sound was different from what he'd expect. It resembled a flute, yet the notes were less shrill, like there wasn't much of an alternation to the sound. It sounded more natural, like his grandpa's breath, his emotions were freely flowing out. It had been only but a few seconds, but they were enough to make Jack forget about trying to describe the sound, and captivate him in Gus's movements instead._

 _Jack's attentive eyes were under a spell. He was witnessing his grandpa's coarse features soothe, lids touching ever softly, fingers caressing the ocarina's parts with a warm gentleness... The crafty man who liked to make noise had disappeared altogether. What was being unveiled through the notes, was a kind and sentimental existence._

 _High note, low note, lower note, medium note, a slow and sad pace, then a brisk cheerful one, a sad one again. Jack could practically see the notes flying from Gus's ocarina._

 _This wasn't just a song. It was a story, a story of a man. His happiness, his sorrow, his regrets, his hopes._

 _They were all conveyed to Jack through music._

 _"Don't gaze at the clouds,_

 _Look forward,_

 _And never give up."_

 _._

The clouds had been banished by Gus's performance, his grandpa was radiating from the sun's rays that finally purified all the shadows, Jack's hesitation had been cleansed through the bittersweet song.

"Grandpa!"

Gus smiled with longing eyes as he turned to him, his grandson was holding something inside that excited fist. _"Did it reach you, Jack..?"_

He moved as if to march for his grandfather with the answer, "I finally know what I—..."

...He watched the smile fade from his grandfather's lips... and his eyes as they were slowly plagued by an imminent calamity.

Jack's view was tilting askew, he couldn't feel anything under his feet.

 _"...Why... He wasn't even standing near the edge... Why...?"_

Gus's mouth peeled to bare the panic clenching his teeth.

A whole portion of the mountain... was on a landslide.

"Grand..pa..?"

Jack's vision blurred as his heart pounded, not because he was falling...

But because he wouldn't let him fall.

"JAAAACK!"

.

.

* * *

 _09.05.17_

 _End of CH.11_

 _P.S: Next update is the finale of the backstory! Please look forward to it!_ _Don't forget to drop a review!_

 _~TBC_


	12. Thinking of you

**_A/N_** _: (Deep breath) At long last it's here! This is one of the chapters that's been stuck on the back of my head since I first started writing this story._

 ** _Rating:_** _T_

 ** _Disclaimer:_** _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

 ** _Chapter 12. Thinking of you - Prelude: Final_**

.

.

"DON'T—!"

A lone desperate word was yelled, he didn't have time to think twice, nor he needed to.

Gus pulled his brakes flinchingly. The farmer was facing the greatest threat of the sixty years he had piled up, his grandson was grabbing tooth and nail at the rocky jaws of that accursed cliff, _yet Jack had given him an unmistakable order_. Never would he have guessed the boy could be hiding a voice so thwarting and mighty in him, paralyzing even a veteran's feet.

"Jack..!" He attempted to defy the hamstrings on his legs and steal an inch.

"I SAID DON'T!"

Jack's hand pounced from behind to catch hold of a slightly elevated crack. His nails chipped falling upon jagged edges. _Jack shut his eyes bitterly, to himself.. this sight was not for his grandpa to see_.

He knew what was happening here... there was no reliable foothold to make the slightest bit of progress... No matter how much he tried to stick his legs onto the cliff he'd eventually succumb to an unavoidable slip, he'd be right back where he started. _All because he couldn't be a boulder.. All because he wasn't strong enough..._

Clumps of rubble started to glide below Jack's despairing eyes. _They were coming from...!_

"What are you doing!?" Jack miserably mashed his teeth together, he was seeing something he hoped he wouldn't have to.

"Stop giving me that shit and give me _your hand_!" Gus had made hooks with the tips of his boots on the verge that was still solid and was climbing down to reach Jack.

An arm of salvation was being offered to him, and yet... _He looked hesitant to accept it... If he took it, his grandfather would also..._

Gus was grinding his teeth to powder, the almighty lord had not created him oblivious enough to not see what was going on in that naive grandson's head.

He was startled when his grandfather's clouded expression suddenly exploded with anger.

"DAMN THAT THICK SKULL OF YOURS! FOOLISH HEROICS AREN'T THE ONES THAT WILL SAVE YOUR ASS HERE!" Gus jerked his stretched arm to show him what'd actually save him, "NOW GIVE ME YOUR DAMN HAND!"

Jack was equally angry at him, _foolish heroics was exactly what Gus was doing as well..._ He nevertheless nodded at him with the compromise he wanted.

"Alright, here goes..." _He exhaled all of his air, he had to give this one the best of his ability,_ "Three... Two... One..!"

Gus was sweating cold in a standby that felt like ages, he wasn't cut for these kind of stunts anymore.

"NOW!"

Jack mustered all of the strength he had, mediocre and feeble strength as it might be, but above all... _He had been reminded by his grandpa's message to never give up._

 _._

 _._

 _"..Eh..?"_

 _However something paradox and unexpected happened.._

 _Everything was slowing down for Gus. Jack's reaching arm, his shooting expression as distress intensified all over his face..._

 _He couldn't hear Jack's cry as he was reaching to him... What was he saying?_

 _Everything around the boy was becoming blank, nondescript, mute..._

 _And on the boy..._

 _...was a different face..._

 _"Why... Why am I thinking of this now...?"_

.

.

[...]

"Hey dad, is it really true that there are medical herbs around here?"

"Hahaha, you'll soon see for yourself, after all that's why you came here today, right?"

 _My son was only ten back then,_

 _an enthusiastic youngster having just discovered the thrill of an adventure just like every boy of his age_

 _He was especially interested in herbs since they were related to the making of rare medicine_

 _He aspired to shoot for a med school in the future to come,_

 _so making research on medical herbs while on Leaf Valley was making him an eager beaver for my wife to constantly chase after._

 _I wouldn't say it around him, but on the inside I was happy my son looked so motivated about something._

 _On a day off from my work I talked it over with his mom and let him tag along with me,_

 _to spend some time together since I'd always been busy with the farm and errands around the village,_

 _to make up for some of that lost time while foraging for wild mushrooms up on Pike mountain._

"Can you really eat herbs though? Aren't they bitter?"

"Kinda, yeah they can be bitter.. But it depends."

"Like how?"

"Well see, the green ones have a cool minty taste, so they aren't that bad."

"What about the red ones? The ones they say they're really hard to find."

"Yeah.. those are more bitter than Woody after losing a bet..."

"Oh wow... Like, _really really_ bitter then?"

"Hahaha, yeah... But you know, it's the red ones that will make you feel better after coming down with a cold."

 _We had travelled deep into the mountain while going on about herbs for hours,_

 _after a while we reached a mossy ledge that we had to climb in order to get to the special spot I wanted_

 _I started climbing first to show my son what to grab on and how to place his footholds._

 _About ten feet above laid a remote garden detached from the rest of the mountain,_

 _Even amongst the villagers only few stood aware of its existence, human footprint had hardly tainted this secret land._

 _Rare kinds of flowers, mushrooms and herbs I'd never seen before would grow there,_

 _they had a mystic air about them, so I never picked what was beyond my understanding_

 _I couldn't wait to see my son marvel at this exotic biotope with his own eyes_

 _to understand what a true wonder of nature is like_

"Just watch me dad."

 _I had already climbed all the way to the top and waited for my son to make his way up,_

"I'm going to study hard about Leaf Valley's herbs and I'll become its finest doctor!"

 _I could see the fire in his eyes as he conquered the slippery wall, quite adeptly considering it was his first time._

 _He possessed a remarkably sharp intuition,_

 _He understood well the importance of preserving nature and its kind,_

 _And most of all, he had been honing the determination to help those in need_

 _My son was undoubtedly going to become not only Leaf Valley's finest doctor,_

 _but also a righteous paladin protecting all that nature was a home to._

 _One day..._

 _...He'd be Leaf Valley's greatest hero..._

"Hahaha, well look who's shooting big! But you know, you've still got a looong ways to go till you get there."

 _Nevertheless, I didn't want him to get full of himself and risk getting him on a high horse,_

 _goading his resolve was what he needed to never lose sight of his goal_

 _He had reached the top, thus I turned the other way as if all had ended well..._

 _The deep mountain wasn't anything new for me, but my son hadn't seen these parts before,_

 _Even with my instructions and his own quick judgement,_

 _he wouldn't know how to handle himself if something unexpected happened,_

 _and being a young father myself, even I hadn't prepared for such a small miscalculation..._

"AAAH!"

 _My heart flew off my chest when I heard his scream_

 _He had finished the climb,_

 _but as he had tried to pull his body over the surface,_

 _his hand stepped onto a hedgehog that was sleeping inside the tall grass_

 _He lost his balance and he was falling on his back..._

"MATTHEWWW!"

 _I jetted like a maniac to his aid..._

 _throwing my arm as if it to separate it from my own body..._

 _But all I ever caught..._

 _was thin air..._

 _I'll never forget the puzzled look he had on him as the gap between us kept getting wider and wider..._

 _Like asking me why I didn't make it on time..._

 _Why I wasn't there for him..._

"GU...—AAAAHH!"

 _A scream even more agonizing and awful than before echoed several times throughout the mountain's grounds.._

"DAD... DAD IT HURTS! IT HURTS SO MUCH!"

 _The fall wasn't steep, but Matthew landed on a rock..._

 _He broke his leg..._

 _It was but an unfortunate moment, rotten luck even.._

 _But no matter how I tried to explain it to him..._

 _Even after his leg mended... Even after he was able to walk again.._

 _He would only ever give me the cold shoulder.._

 _Through this trauma Matthew had undergone a lifetime change._

 _Because to him... That day..._

 _Nature had rejected him..._

 _And his father... had failed him.._

 _Leaf Valley was not his distant dream anymore,_

 _but a bitterness he'd have to put up with till he could move to the city._

 _And I... His farmer father..._

 _Represented all that had left him disillusioned..._

 _All that had caused him pain.._

 _..All that had cost him his happiness.._

 _Matthew, it was that pain that followed you even after you got married in the city, wasn't it..?_

 _It was that parental instinct that made you take a vow to never allow Jack experience that same pain.._

 _Wait... Jack...?_

 _Jack...!_

[...]

.

.

"GRANDPA—!"

 _The memory from thirty years ago had lasted but a split second, a mere fraction of time. Yet it was that one split second, which had banished him from the present to the fetters of the past, that was going to continue the chain of tragedy._

"SHIT—!"

 _He didn't get to secure Jack's hand when it had reached an effective zenith, but when its consequent decline incurred. Gus had grabbed not Jack's hand, but just three of his receding fingers._

 _He couldn't pull him up... Not if it weren't a firm grip..._

 _Gus's boots were starting to slip away in this stalemate._

 _Jack had sacrificed his desperate effort to stay put,_

 _only for his grandfather to offer him a false hope._

 _Gus's twitching gaze was enough telling, of how he had failed Jack._

"Jack.. what are you doing...?"

His grandson's fingers were wiggling, _they were trying to break away from his trembling fist._

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!"

Countless vessels cracked in the frenzy of his glare, but fury subsided at the gasp of his numb heart.

 _...What was that smile for?..._

"It was a clumsy, but beautiful song, grandpa.."

"Jack..."

"I wonder what a home and what friends one has to be blessed with to able to express such wistful feelings.."

"Jack please... I beg you..."

"Promise me one thing, grandpa..."

 _Their eyes connected and stayed on each others'._

 _In these silent moments feeling like an eternity that neither of them wished to end,_

 _Gus was being entrusted with his grandson's parting words._

"...Never give up on who you are...

Never give up on Leaf Valley..."

.

.

 _Gus's fingers were weak, loose, defeated._

 _Jack was gone._

 _"Lord.. are you punishing me for being unable to save my son back then?_

 _Do you mean to tell me you'll take my grandson away for my failure as well?_

 _Lord... Are you once again testing.. my resolution?"_

 _Within his silence.. smoldered a calm, wrathful sea..._

 _A sea ready to twist the fate heaven had bestowed him._

 _._

 _._

 _He was sinking with a nosedive into a deaf pitch black ocean, but he was peaceful. A grain disenchanted maybe, for the underwhelming life he had lead up to this point, but still content with the little things he had achieved. Jack was aware this wasn't his story, it had never been his story from the day he learnt to interpret the meaning of words, but he didn't complain about it, nor he saw it as injustice. The leading figures of this tale had been his father, his grandfather, men who had recognized their dream and committed themselves to it wholeheartedly. Men with good people around them, and an even better family to keep them warm._

 _He had never found his own place to belong, and even when he thought he finally did, it was being taken down, a boy doomed to wander like a revenant with no tangible purpose in life, doomed to chase after a light that seemed ever faraway. It was almost ironic, that today he was actually able to take a peek at what was inside that light, and who would have guessed it'd be this wonderful old man? He had found the answer, but he was never able to say it to him... Still, considering his tiny role in this story, not actually fulfilling the dream he'd just discovered, but just realizing what it was supposed to have been, was enough to put him at peace of mind. The life he had lived of his own accord might have been penniless, but not unrewarding. In these short nineteen years, he had saved up his own small bits of happiness, because in this life..._

 _"I had no regrets."_

 _._

 _._

 _"Hey, are you going to leave as well?_

 _From this pathetic world, where only hypocrites remain?"_

 _._

 _._

 _"Huh?"_

 _Whose voice was that? An angel's? But would an angel really use such harsh words?_

 _This must've been the oddity his dad called near-death experience._

 _He wondered about the meaning behind her resentment, questions wouldn't stop even in the afterlife it seemed..._

"g..rr..rra...aaa...AAAARRGHHH!"

"—!"

What in the world..!? A boisterous battle cry was closing in at rocket speed. Jack's eyes had snapped out of their limbo, they were awake, and once again, fear had returned in his heartbeat, the fear that was telling him he was still alive.

He was shocked by a forceful bump, but it was not the flattening crash against the cliff.

"YOU ARE A HUNDRED YEARS TOO EARLY TO BE PULLING A HERO ON ME!"

"GRANDPA?!"

"BUCKLE UP, THIS AIN'T GONNA BE PRETTY!"

With their joined weight slashing through the air barrier Gus braced his gaze, they were heading right for the cliff's slanted level at alarming speed. Gus propelled his waist midair to increase the bleak odds that Jack would somehow survive through this.

"GAAAAAHH—!"

The indescribable agony of bones turning to paste shaped Gus's overstretched jaw, the first collision had destroyed his left shoulder joint and possibly shattered several of his ribs. _His grip was still going strong, unyielding._

"What did you do?!"

Jack cried in his arms as they were bounced off the in the air again, his grandpa was sacrificing his body, _he was killing himself to be a cushion for him._

"KUAAAAH!"

The second impact twisted his right leg out of proportion, they were now toppling down that dreadful scarp, Gus fastened his teeth tightly while squeezing enduring groans as jutting rocks kept flanking him with lacerations all over. _Endure... Endure.. Endure.. To endure and stay strong was his last mission, Jack's life depended on his locked arms. He tossed a coin and cracked a slit on his eye._

 _They weren't going to make it... It was still a too long way down._

Gus was holding Jack with his dislocated arm while the still functional limb swiftly reached for something behind his waist. Jack's eye widened, paled, shivered. The flash of a blade informed him as Gus pulled a knife from its sheath. The moment they were off the scarp would be Gus's one and only window of opportunity to make a last ditch effort.

"KAAAAH!" He stabbed the blade into the soil, watching with rapidly draining patience as it hardly made for a means to an end, "SLOW DOWN FUCKING DAMN IT!"

 _Shiiiiiiing—chink..._

Hope was stolen too soon from the old man. He thought his eyes were failing him as the snapped edge of the blade whirled in the air.

"SHIIIIIIIT!"

Gus braced his grandson again with all the little strength he had left in him as they were forced into an unavoidable barrel roll. _They were at the mercy of the cliff._

"GRANDPA!"

Jack had been able to take a glimpse of something through their countless spins.

"A TREE! WE'RE GONNA CRASH INTO A TREE!"

Gus had already seen it more than an uncomfortable number of times, and each time that tree seemed closer, wider, bigger... One of them was going to break soon, and it didn't seem like it'd be that tree... _Gus's closing eyes were accepting their fate.._

 _He smiled, having taken a decision._

 _That Jack's fate, would not be sealed along with his._

[...]

A large flock of sparrows scattered in an upheaval out from the large tree.

Jack was still conscious after the last collision that was supposed to have finished the job. He had trouble opening his eyes, his head was pounding and his ears were screeching. When he ventured to turn on his screen everything was hazy, unclear, sometimes his vision would become double and asymmetrically unfocused, two pictures of the same swimming in circles... _He couldn't recall a time he had been this dizzy, he'd probably earned a concussion from the violent trip downhill._ He could still somewhat make out that his trousers carried ripped holes, and the scrapes on his kneecaps were burning as if they had been brushed with sandpaper. A few bruises on his arms, some dull pain on his collarbone, but... _That was all of it._

"...What a ride huh..?" The voice was limp, parched.

Distress signals had already climbed atop Jack's confusion.

"Grandpa..?" He slowly turned to find him grinning unsteadily, _putting an effort into it._

It was not until Gus spoke that it began to sink in to Jack that he was still in his grandfather's arms.

"...You alright boy?"

Jack's mouth was trying to speak, but his throat had become a bottleneck _..._ It was all clear to him now, why what was supposed to have been certain death, had let him escape with just a generous shaving.

"G.. randpa... You..."

The farmer had crashed with his old back against the tree to absorb the final blow and protect him... _But now... He was broken._

Gus's eyelids were heavy, but unregretting...

"GRANDPA WE HAVE TO GET YOU TO—!"

Only one arm could Gus still move around, and he used it to stop Jack.

"..I'd rather spend what time I have left... with you..."

Jack's lip bled, but the pain from biting his lip was nothing compared to those words that were going like a knife in his chest.

"You'll be alright. We'll get help and you—"

"Jack..."

He was hushed by a burdened smile.

...

"Five years, ten years...

It's all the same to me...

I'd just be an old man sitting on his deathbed,

counting days that are numbered,

watching myself get older and older,

weaker and weaker by the day...

Damned to watch my loved ones' lights go out before mine...

Fearing to be left with no one,

but myself...

Those years would be nothing but torment to my soul

But...

If I could trade those pitiful years

to accomplish something valuable...

I'd gladly throw away all of it...

Today was a blessing to me...

Because I was able to use this still strong body of mine,

to protect something really valuable..."

...

The flow of tears wouldn't stop, Jack's face was too downcast for Gus to see.

"But you already.. knew all of this.."

Jack's head was trying to reject the words from his ears, _what did he have to do to make them go away...?_

"Do you know... why I started hiding from you... in your house, whenever I'd visit..?"

The reclusive boy kept shaking his head side to side, _"Please.. no more..."_

"It's because... You were the only one... that could see transparently... through here..."

Gus's arm shuddered in lifting up... _to tap his chest,_ "...And the fact that.. someone else... besides me.. could feel who I was... could feel what I felt... scared me.."

 _"K-Kuh..."_ Jack was unable to hold the sob that escaped through clenched teeth, fists also squeezing harder against sitting knees.

"Jack... all those letters.. you've been sending me... for the past three years.."

His knuckles stopped shaking, eyes opened to their fullest..

"They were... when you left home... when you were lonely.. without your family...?"

His eye was self-conscious as sensitive keys pressed in him, "Grandpa I—"

"Guuhaack!" A burst of relentless coughs vibrated in his lungs, just inhaling was skewering his broken sides, every breath he was drawing felt less and less filled with air... _Time was running short._

"Jack, my cap.."

 _The cap..?_ But he didn't need more words to understand, he quickly fumbled around for the item, it was a few feet up the hill.

He spared it a hurried glance while crawling back to his grandfather, it had to be important. He handed it to him with care.

"The writings on it... do you know what they mean?"

 _Yeah, the word 'TOY' had been written on the cap._

"Before my wife and my son left the village... My wife seamed those letters on this cap... She said..."

 _Whenever you feel lonely without us.._

 _Search at the back of your head..._

 _And then you will know..._

 _That we are always..._

 _Thinking of you_

 _._

 _"Thinking of you..."_ So that's what the letters he had mistaken for _TOY_ meant, _they were actually..._

Jack did not get a chance to process this any further, his head was already under Gus's binding palm.

"The day the snow begins to melt... The day the first spring-birds come out of their nests to chirp their new songs... I know that an important day has dawned.."

Jack's gasp kicked with surprise, he quietly looked up from under the shade of the cap his grandfather bequeathed him.

"..Today is the 1st of spring." His eyes wrinkled with benevolent amusement at how clueless Jack was slowly realizing he had been.

.

"Today... You're turning twenty...

Today you're turning a big page in your life...

You're not a kid anymore..

You've already spent dear days,

flying back and forth inside a roofless cage...

The time has come to look up,

and fly beyond the city's bars

Ride the winds,

and let them take you,

where you truly belong..

Jack... this cap...

is my birthday gift.. to you.."

.

Jack's face was snuggled like a cub's next to its parent's, liberating words he had needed to hear, a way no one had bothered to show him before, was now carved in his heart. He didn't want to leave him, and his grandfather's tightly embracing arm didn't want to leave him either. _Mere words could never hope to express the mutual feelings this parting hug was carrying. Their bond was above and beyond that of a grandson and a grandfather... It was an unbreakable friendship... and it'd stay like that.. till the end of days..._

"..Now go.. Grandpa needs.. some time alone.. with himself.."

 _The corners of his sight were already becoming black.. He didn't want the boy to bear the cross of watching him draw his last breath.._

This was Gus's final request... Jack pushed himself to stand up, holding the snapped knife he found around lying. He brought both hands behind his head, one arm pulled with a swift motion.

"..I will always be.. thinking of you.. thank you.. grandpa.."

With the last farewell bitter in his heart, he turned the bill of the cap to face backwards... _Just how his grandfather meant him to wear it... Those words, would forever stay on the back of his head.. Now he had to open his eyes, and gaze onwards.. He started to walk with failing steps from his injuries, but soon he was marching, clipping along... then running... He had found a new meaning on the rills going down his cheeks._

 _[...]_

 _Jack did not wail his lungs out even though he was so much in need to,_

 _he didn't allow the berserk emotions to break him down.._

 _He'd keep that anger and sorrow inside,_

 _to remind him of his powerless self.._

 _to remind him how nothing..._

 _could come without a cost._

 _[...]_

 _The old man's thoughts had forgotten their purpose inside his lifeless palm, on the ponytail Jack had severed from his hair._

 _"Jack.. Is that your way of telling me.. that part of you.. will die here.. with me..? That's no good.. you know.."_

 _He was still able to crease up a smile, because even so, he was deeply grateful for the tribute._

 _"...In the end... I wasn't even able to tell you about Leaf Valley.. I'm sorry... But I had made a promise to your father... But.. who knows.. If the winds will it.. Your journey might find shore in Leaf Valley.. then maybe.. you'll be the one... that will save it.. because Jack.. Leaf Valley... will need a hero... and you are... without a doubt..."_

 _Soon.. In that palm of his, with his picture burning away like paper on fire, many memories played vividly... The piggyback when Jack was just four years old, the fishing trip at the lake outside the city, the snowball fight during a sunny winter.. And he was always shining to him with a radiant smile, an unconditional kindness.. Memories of a boy that was unlike all the rest, a boy that would not give up character to become one with the modern stereotypes.. A boy that didn't hesitate to make friends with an old man... A boy, that had been the friend of his soul.._

 _The only sakura blossom parted ways with the cherry tree above, to drift and let the wind guide it.. to find its place, next to Jack's ponytail in his hand... This bud had bloomed.. and Gus's lids were resting at peace._

 _._

 _"Hey, Liz... I did well... right..?"_

 _._

 _._

 _A velvety light descended,_

 _Slender bright arms received him in their warm care_

 _The angel welled up treasuring the beautiful farmer in her lap,_

 _"Welcome home, August."_

 _._

 _._

 _That faint smile on his lips,_

 _that not even fate could take away from him,_

 _was his pride._

* * *

 _30.07.17_

 _End of CH.12_

 ** _A/N #2_** _: In the beginning the backstory was meant to have been 3~4 chapters long, that's how much I believed it'd take for me to show what I wanted to show. But as happens with many stories and many writers, sometimes characters that are meant to be there just for a short while, unexpectedly start taking a life and shape of their own, as happened here. Those characters grew on me (obviously), thus what was supposed to have been a short backstory, grew to be an entire saga. I'm actually really satisfied with the result, since I got to flesh out the characters exactly how I wanted._

 _That said, Gus's story has come to an end, but he made sure Jack would get a tale of his own :)_

 _My chosen theme for Gus: Hoping for you - IronBlooded Orphans_


	13. Not out of the woods yet

**_Rating:_** _T_

 ** _Disclaimer:_** _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

 ** _Chapter 13. Not out of the woods yet_**

.

.

 _"Gwahaha.. Bet ya didn' see that one comin', eh Jackie boy?"_

 _"Not fair gramps! You cheated again!"_

 _"Oh.. Did I now? Well, ya know that ol' sayin'.._

 _Nothin's fair in [...]"_

 _..._

Gleams of a faint remembrance inside a vast dark.

Fragments of an old man's sneaky grin.

Always a picture of him that was not whole.

Always fading in the distance.

Always leaving him behind.

.

.

"Ngh.."

He groaned with a protest, once again a memory of him had slipped from somewhere that was surely too deep down to escape.

 _"Come on, how did you expect me to know about fishing baits?_

 _..._

 _That was one hell of a catch though..._

 _..._

 _Hmph, I'll get him next time"_

"...For the love of..."

"—!?"

Sealed eyes squeezed together under someone's miffed voice. The boy felt like he had been pulled out from an everlasting dream, not sure whether he had wanted to wake up from it. Because even though he had lost, his defeat felt warm.. Warm like..

...

 _Bleary, crimson, dancing colors...?_

...

 _The farmer only wished something like that existed in his house... His lids could still be groggy and heavy, but Jack knew he didn't own a fireplace._

That sure was a new way of his brain handing him a few signs: _'I'm tired of you kick-starting me inside a freezer every morning, build a god-damn fireplace already.'_

 _"Just ...What was I dreaming...?"_

He squinched his lids shut to try and remember, but all memory of it had already faded...

 _...unlike that fireplace_.

The fog from his sight was gone, but the fireplace was still there, in all its expensive-looking detail as well. It quickly struck Jack that the fireplace wasn't actually burning, and instead how it was more like a visual kind-of-thing mounted on the wall. But even without actual flames, it was emitting heat in regular waves. In other words, a fake fireplace mimicking a real fireplace...

Too intricate to ponder over, why would anyone trouble themselves with something as complex as that? Be that as it may, everything beyond this crimson glowing fireplace was too dark for Jack to see. Slowly, he was becoming aware that he was in fact in unknown territory.

 _"What's going on..? Where is this pl_ —... _!_ _"_

When his cheeks were suddenly squeezed by a hand that was literally ordering for his attention, things would become clear pretty soon.

"...My high heel snapped... to drag you up here..."

Her tone was wearing a sane color, but the grim face was speaking otherwise. At first it looked like her eye was shimmering, about to cry for some reason, sad, mourning even.. but soon a cold twitch had killed any weakness she had inside her.

Her dark clouds were gathering, rumbling from afar, ominously...

Jack got the feeling he and the world alike were about to sink inside the maw of a fathomless grudge. It was then, while being pierced from above by her wintry gaze, that time started moving forward for the young farmer once more.

 _This was not a dream anymore._

 _What he had woken up to,_

 _was his worst nightmare._

"H-Hey! Where do you think you're going!"

She hadn't prepared for that kind of reaction— _not even a 'sorry for your loss'?_ Perhaps the lack of lights had startled him, had to be. For his own good Alice seized her guest in a headlock-like move from behind if she didn't want him cutting loose. Seriously, he was just like a wild cat that had woken up from an anesthetic. _Awkward_ was a pretty accurate good word to describe the happenings of a day that had to be her birthday.

 _"Are you kidding me..? Anywhere but near you." Was what he was telling her with a cornered eye._

Jack was perfectly aware of one fact; from the moment he had set foot inside this building, everything had gone wrong. He didn't even need to recall step by step the things that went on; He had dropped by for the sake of delivering a birthday gift and he had ended up trapped inside Funland's iron bowels instead, cleverly deceived and devoured by its CEO.

"There's a storm outside, do you really think it's wise to—"

"I'm fine with it."

Just by the look on him she could tell he was holding back his tongue. _Jeez, how stubborn._

"Even if you manage to sniff your way out of Funland there's an outage all over Leaf Valley— Heck, the outage has struck all the way up _here_ , of all places. You won't be able to find your way to..."

Jack forced a deep breath down his lungs, he was a man of deep patience, but now even his deep patience was wearing thin.

"Like you know how it is..."

Alice numbed head to toe when she was touched by cold words.

 _"...Finding your way back home without even a star left to guide you..."_

 _It had always been this way for Jack, and today would be no different. All the farmer had ever known was to walk onward, fumbling his way if he had to._

"I know the way back, so..." Jack's knees began lifting him up as if a programmed sequence had been embedded inside him.

Even if the CEO refused to let go of him, even if it meant dragging her on his back for the whole trip down south... _He'd get back home._

"For crying out Jack! Can't you tell!?" Alice clenched her teeth, Jack's tachometer was revving from stubborn to reckless way too fast, "You're still burning up! Do you want to pass out somewhere out there!?"

"Τhat's rich.. coming from you.."

 _Those cold words again.._ First time she guessed it was all just in her mind.. A grumpy wake-up she thought, _'Anyone can wake up on the wrong side of the bed.. Heck I get it every day.'_

 _But this was not the case. It was almost as if the one who had woken up was not Jack..._ _But a different person... One who would defile their smile with sarcasm and stare idly with contempt._

 _Alice was arriving closer and closer to a conclusion the more she stared into those eyes,_

 _"This is not Jack..!"_

 _Eyes that had abandoned all the light they once had._

.

.

* * *

 _ **A/N** : Short chapter, I know. Basically part 2 of the story. Look forward to it!_

 _04.01.18_

 _End of CH.13_


	14. Symptoms

**_Rating:_** _T_

 ** _Disclaimer:_** _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

 ** _Chapter 14. Symptoms_**

.

.

Whenever Alice would find herself in a pinch, a bizarre habit would kick in. She'd put her current situation and a similar past one on the scales, comparing them, weighing their risk, cost, value, overall danger, the sort of things every business person fancied. The balance would usually tilt favorably.

 _"It's alright, I've had worse." She'd sigh reassured and then brush all of her stress off with a flaunt of her pigtail._

It was a technique most vital in keeping her mind's processors running smooth and operational, if anything— and that's exactly what Alice was doing now.

If she were to compare the face Jack made back when she insulted his friends, that enraged face, brimming with retaliation... The face he was making now was just.. just...

 _"...Uh..."_

 _..._

Calling him just pissed would probably be an understatement. That sideways glare was so resilient even against this dead silent room Alice could swear Jack was pinning her with something.

 _"...Oh, I see..."_ Being a CEO had required her to wear that face not few times in the past, due to pests mostly, _"That's how I look when I'm about to... sue someone.."_

Those eyes were definitely pressing charges on her. It was time for Alice to think this through, carefully.

 _"Relax Alice, he's had a really bad day.. and maybe... just MAYBE... I'm part to blame for it. Factual check time..._

 _We were going to chop down their entire forest._

 _Risked his life to save me from my own plan._

 _Got told by that old woodcutter for staying back to help me._

 _Misjudged and criticized his kind gesture on my birthday._

 _Saved me again for a second time in the rain._

 _Never said a single thanks to him._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Slapped him."_

They say reality lands hard sometimes... to Alice, it had landed like Charles' repeated attempts to get a promotion with flattery. _The feeling was heavy and cold, like a cracking iceberg that was slowly sinking to the very depths of embarrassment._

And embarrassed she may be after coming to terms with all of it, but Jack was not cutting her any more slack. He wasn't the idiot she thought him to be and he was fed up with her crafty games. He had a farm to return to and a valley to save from her.

The shields were up.

All signs were there, telling her it was perhaps a good time to undo her binds on him. After all the things she had him go through, it was the only right thing left to do. The thing was, her jaw was clenching against the mere concept of a good-will truce. That _'rich'_ punch in the face he so earnestly graced her with just a moment ago..

It was still stinging…

…and Alice didn't like losing.

"Fine then, see how that works out for you." Conceding she curled her body and bounced over at the sofa's corner, arms crossed. She'd done all in her power to persuade him, but she wasn't gonna mourn over her failure either.

Jack exhaled quietly. She was finally off his back, _in the literal sense of it_. He could go home.

"Oh, I forgot to mention though." She turned to see the farmer already scanning around for the nearest exit. "Your clothes are still drying up."

Jack blanked out.

Having him turn to a statue was the solid proof of her vindication.

 _"Laughs best who laughs last."_

Jack's naive quest for escape had come to an untimely end, instead he began to address his attention ever lower.

"...!?" Arms jolted in shock when the only thing left on him were his pants, "HOW THE— _...What...!?_ "

 _Priceless._

 _"That's what happens when you don't listen to me." She shaped a masquerade mask out of her hand and was watching with amusement well-hidden._

"Aww maaan...!" Jack kept moaning hopelessly. So many things were missing... Not only his shirt, his boots were gone, the gloves that were a gift from his boss at the pet-shop, even the rucksack he carried so many things inside too.. "I gotta be dreaming still.. Yeah... This is..."

A flick of the finger was all that was needed to shatter Jack's fragile knees for a second time.

With his breath weak and shivering he massaged his temples, the headache was making a lot of noise in his ears all of a sudden and he was feeling like he was gonna black out just sitting on the sofa while welling up behind his palm.

He was desperate.

Soon he was so light-headed he didn't even ask why his body was capsizing on its own. His sense of orientation was fading like he was on a rollercoaster, strength was giving up on him again.

.

.

The land wasn't as hard as he thought. In fact, his head was resting on soft ground.

"Stop acting like a baby and give your body a _rest_ already."

Having her stare down on him from above Jack could tell he was right back where he was when he first woke his eyes. After processing the oddity with a couple of blinks the situation rose a pretty good question about his bed.

He thought of rolling his eye but Alice was scandalized by the very idea.

"Try anything funny and I'll make sure you learn to use the shortcut exit."

And that would be the 3rd floor's window.

.

.

 _Alice was letting him sleep on her legs?_

". . . . . . ." _He had no words._

Rather, Jack looked like a bystander when a dreadful car accident happened, that's how stunned and on the edge he was. Alice could practically see the question marks popping all over his face.

 _Her fists were shaking... Jack's honesty was too hard on her…_

"I'm not a monster Jack…"

It was not like Alice to care enough about the impression others had of her. In fact, the only impression she had ever cared for was the impression she had for her own self. _Elegant, professional, resourceful, ambitious, desirable._ The recipe for success. That was all that mattered, all that was of essence.

That was… until the day she'd meet.. _._

". . . . . . ."

 _'The boy that was seeing her as a dreadful car accident'_

In the beginning she had laughed them to be fleeting symptoms, unavoidable funny little things that come along with a climate that is different from the city..

And yet, even after four seasons had come full circle, after a whole year had gone by.. the symptoms were still there, growing, telling her that this person's view of her..

..was really important.

.

.

* * *

 _11_ _.01.18_

 _End of CH.14_


	15. The price of apology

**_Rating:_** _T_

 ** _Disclaimer:_** _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

 ** _Chapter 15. The price of apology_**

.

.

Having reached the heights of a CEO's position meant there was practically no one who could touch her, not a person she'd have to answer to for the cold-blooded decisions she'd make on a whim. She was standing at the pinnacle and everyone else wallowed beneath her. Things like the common people's loud clamors would disperse into nothing long before climbing up the skyscraper she was sitting on, never bothering her ears.

Alice had a really tall view from the CEO's expensive leather chair, and from that point of view, Leaf Valley was just another stepping stone in the way of her career. She'd feel no attachment for this tiny stone either.

So, with a goal as clear as that set in her mind, why was she trying to be clear to someone she'd probably require a pair of binoculars to descry all the way down to the bottom? ...A farmer?... On top of that, of her own initiative?

 _"Something inside those doe eyes.. something in the way he looks scared of me.."_

 _The screaming yet mute eyes of someone not feeling at ease, but hostage to kindness._

...That's why her gaze had long fled from that face, empty of challenge.

"..I know this seems weird, right..?"

Just for a moment she split a glance wishing to catch a nod from him, but her guest was just numb to the bone marrow. Alice realized it was only going to get more awkward for her, having to do all the talking while sorting out tangled thoughts.. but there was no going back.. Even though this had to win the awards for the most embarrassing monologue ever, her lips were still going to weave the words that had to be said.

 _Her chest sighed, this weight had stayed unknown to Alice up till now..._

".. When I forced you to follow me back inside the building, I-I—M-My intentions...—"

Her tongue clicked, cursing itself. Apparently trying to open up to Jack who was freezing on her legs was a pretty effective way of reminding her the stuttering barrage that'd use to plague her back from the days of childhood. Couldn't exactly call it nostalgia.

She was annoyed, shaking with an embarrassment that was beyond words... and despite all that, her lips were slowly relinquishing any resistance they were putting up.

"..I wasn't thinking... It could get _this_ bad.."

She hated the way she had to check back from the edge of her lashes, it was kind of timid and allowing.

Jack's stare got a bit wider, taken aback. He really wanted to believe this wasn't another trick, that she wasn't just going to start laughing the moment he'd walk away, like the many times before. Alice offering her smooth legs for his wet head to rest.. It was so out of this world his heartbeat was galloping ever anxiously for what was to come. Those sharp green eyes weren't letting go of him, _they were waiting for him._

The farmer gulped, he'd probably need a miracle to avoid _that..._

Alice couldn't bring her brows to their natural balance, Jack's repressed expression was juddering like a nuclear reactor struggling to contain an explosion. It was just too easy to imagine what he was torturing his poor brain with.

 _"For Pete's sake! I was joking about the shortcut exit..! Stop making this hard for me and say someth_ — _!"_

Suddenly Jack had clapped and joined his hands together, to her blinking surprise, in a gesture of penance.

"Sorry I told you off like that! I didn't know you were actually taking care of me..!" Eyes tightly shut, pleading for absolution.

For a while Alice could only wear a speechless 'eh?', not what she was expecting, "I-It's alright, you weren't in the wrong acting like that, I—"

Then she just forgot what she was going to say, that pair of lost puppy eyes being the reason. She felt too at fault recalling the feral fangs she had forced him to show her down in the garage. What she had on her legs right now.. It was so cute and clueless her lips were drawing stiff from guilt. _Temperature was rising on her cheeks again._

 _"Just look away and cool down.."_

 _He was missing the point and she was no better following in his tracks._

"Jack I'm.. I'm talking about your condition.. I wasn't thinking you might be pushing yourself so hard.."

Alice couldn't seem to find shelter on Jack's ever oblivious face, but she didn't want to sound dishonest because of her hesitation either.

"..I know when I'm in the wrong, and I'm well-aware I went a bit too far this time around, s-so..."

She breathed deeply as she mustered a brave decision to look the farmer in the eye. Her pride was a big pill, but she had to force it down this time.

"..I want to say I'm so—"

But Jack was already ahead of her shaking his head, _skittishly._

 _"Tch! You won't even let me apologize? It's not like I'm putting a little 'sorry' on top of your 50,000G bill you know!"_

Jack was in fact kind of relieved after grasping what she meant to say.

"I already told you, didn't I?" He shrugged a tired smirk as he rubbed the back of his head, "I was asking for it when I jumped inside the mines, that's all."

 _What...Was he talking for real?_

 _He wasn't blaming her for what happened back there? Moreover, he was more concerned about telling her off, which was not all that much paranoid to begin with?_

 _Alice was perplexed, there were suddenly a lot of rising matters she wanted to ask about; Like, why was she getting the impression Jack didn't want her to feel bad about him? Like he was holding himself alone responsible for what had happened? To be fair, she had played her little part too in all this..._

 _But most of all, after seeing what she had seen..._

 _...Just what kind of gruesome work had he been draining himself with to end up like this? Sure, she knew that apart from being a farmer he'd been secretly working out ways to save Leaf Valley... But to risk so much for this place? For people he didn't even know a year ago?_

 _..._

 _She realized his confidence was cryptic._ _It was obvious he wasn't feeling comfortable enough to talk about it. Could she blame him though? Here he was, trapped inside the enemy's base, at his enemy's cruel mercy, unable to comprehend why she was showing a side all too conflicting from what he was used to, or what all of this was supposed to mean._

 _For all Alice knew, Jack was too kind to say he was feeling like a prisoner._

"..Right.. your heel.." He remarked after catching sight of her broken possession sitting on the round glass table just across the couch's length. "Sorry it had to turn like this.."

 _He was letting his focus grow dull, for some odd reason he was having a similar glimpse of a pair of tattered trainers, something from a different time... something with a melancholic color._

Alice was probably feeling the same, losing something that was not as much expensive, as it was precious to her.

"Nggh—..?"

The farmer's eye creased shut, remnants of a tender ache were creeping on his cheekbone.

"Apology accepted." She kept nodding modestly, in reality a lot more delighted than she let out. "In return, you will allow me to at least apologize for _this_."

Jack's neck was getting uncomfortable again, he couldn't find room to sink inside the couch.

 _...Why was she cupping his slapped cheek?_

 _...And was she..._

 _...smiling?_

.

.

* * *

 _08.03.18_

 _End of CH.15_


	16. The wolf cub

**_Rating:_** _T_

 ** _Disclaimer:_** _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

 ** _Chapter 16. The wolf cub_**

.

.

 _"...What is she doing...?_

 _..._

 _...Why is she..."_

 _..._

 _Jack had been guided into a blind alley, each step he was taking was warier than the one before it, he couldn't wrap his head around any of it._

 _Her actions were like a tightly sealed box with no lid to open, no way to dispel these misty happenings._

 _First she lets him lie on her legs, then she's apologizing... next she's caressing his cheek..?_

He had stilled on that soundless smile, ever contradicted, going back over facts in a loop with no end.

 _Wasn't Alice the one who despised being touched?_

 _Wasn't she the one who'd scream and threaten him as thanks for saving her?_

 _..._

The touch of her hand...

...It was too velvety,

almost with a ghostly feel about it,

 _a touch telling how it had always been afraid of touching._

...

Not too far from the silent Jack, Alice herself had been able to tell apart a few things, the very reason for her subdued smile. She had overlooked a really important detail about this person, perhaps the crux of her defeats that were lining up one after the other.

There was more to Jack than what the eye could see _._ She had attempted to peel off his layers already once, when she talked trash about his friends. Out of spite she wanted to prove Jack wasn't the good person he let out to be, that he was only pretending to be nice to her just to rub salt on her wounds. However, what Alice had brought to light upon crossing the line was not some hypocrite who dropped a mask... _but true fangs._

Jack was gazing at her not like the apologizing puppy from a minute ago, he was watching her from within iced pupils that could recognize and sense a close danger.

Kindness, honesty, selflessness, although undoubtedly parts of him, they were just the tip of the iceberg. What Jack's core was truly made of, what had allowed him to come this far, to keep challenging her...

 _...was his instinct._

It would only make sense that a naive puppy had a snowball's chance in hell at surviving alone in the wilderness.. _but a wolf could._

Even so, something was not falling smoothly into place for Alice, she just couldn't imagine this soft pretty face sheltering a wolf all the way along. After all, Jack had been living in the city up until a year ago, and as far as Alice was concerned, about each and every one of the city people were either wandering zombies heading to work or rich layabouts showing off in their cars. Wolves like Jack on the other hand, were an extinct kind in the city.

Was it the contagious air of Leaf Valley that had changed him?

Maybe the villagers and their secluded way of life?

Possibly the deadline closing in on them?

In any case, something had happened.

 _Something that had given birth to this wolf cub._

...

Perhaps it was too late to ask for such things.. But Alice had to try and approach this wolf cub, to let him know that, for the first time, her intentions were not wearing facades. She could only cross her fingers, as this decision was ultimately Jack's to make. Whether he'd allow her to get closer, or if he'd just slap away the hand that slapped him.. It was all up to him.

 _"..why the hell is she doing this..!" Jack struggled not to click his tongue and failed, afflicted with each silky stroke of her hand._

Every fiber of his body was quietly tensing up in pain, Jack had sworn to himself that what little trust he had left couldn't be lost at all costs. He couldn't bear getting deceived, _not again.._

"...!?" He lost his held breath to a gasp.

Her thumb began to move, slowly going up and down, comforting his cheekbone with a familiar gentleness.

A small gap opened on his lips and his stare had turned blank, blank like the suddenly bright room.

[...]

 _Over his ten-year old figure was a woman,_

 _her long brown hair surrounding him protectively,_

 _ever smiling down on him for just having him on her lap,_

 _stroking him under the eye with her thumb,_

 _sometimes until he got sleepy and slept on her legs._

 _How happy she must've been back then._

 _How happy for being able to cherish him._

 _How happy for having her family._

 _..._

 _And how torn she must've been,_

 _when he chose that crosswalk..._

 _How a painful void.._

 _..was left in her heart.._

[...]

"K..uh... _Fuck..!_ " Jack bitterly muttered, teeth baring and gritting.

He twisted himself towards her waist, covering his head so she couldn't make out the overflowing beads, desperate to hide. His fist was creaking as if it wanted to seize and break his weak self, all the choices that made those around him drown in grief. A distant voice was soon echoing in his head and Jack whispered the words, because he wasn't allowed to forget.

"..I'm not.. a kid.. anymore.." A wet fog was gathering in his eyes, lids fluttering inconsolably.

Alice had not broken her smile all the while, in fact, she could finally let her back fall against the sofa, surrender her shoulders and tilt her neck to the side. All that overnight nursing had been killing her stiff joints.

"..Well, can't say I didn't slap you really hard across the face. Go ahead, you have my permission to cry."

Jack rolled a sore red eye, it was still able to telegraph a threat.

"Fu.." Her tongue slipped to tease him.

.

.

* * *

 _01.04.18_

 _End of CH.16_


	17. What was lost

_**Rating:**_ _T_

 _ **Disclaimer:**_ _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

 _ **Chapter 17. What was lost**_

.

.

"Chi!" Jack snapped his glare away from her, _it had to be a fluke._

There was no way telling what sort of ruse she could be trying to pull this time, he called it quits.

 _"Hmm..?"_ Something appealed to her lip. _When did Jack learn to hiss?_

Alice entertained herself with what should be the obvious; Jack couldn't stomach the fact the same evil tyrant who was trying to tear down their village could also be capable of such stunning generosity.

Driven up the wall she had chased him to Alice knew Jack couldn't keep his cool in front of this change, now she was finally being able to further peel the onion. If someone told her that between the two people in this room the title of _tsundere_ went to Jack she'd laugh tears from the joke. But, as they said, life was full of wonders. Alice couldn't lie, if only words could describe how fun this was turning to be.

 _Jack was salty._ For once he was getting a taste how being in her shoes was like, how humiliating treating the defeated with kindness could be.

He couldn't think straight anymore and doing so was inviting one mistake after the other. Countless sweatdrops were trickling down an unconfident frown, all of a sudden faced with a slender waist of pale white skin mere inches away from his nose.

By all means Jack was no expert in sculpture, but he just couldn't fathom how her slightly concaved tummy was blending flawlessly with her clothes, so much it wouldn't let go of his eye. As a matter of fact, those unnerving curves seemed to lead his pupil downward, where two subtle waistlines appeared to converge, under her..

 _"..Ugh..!" He forbade his mind to go there._

Quickly shaking off all the red that had been gaining on his face Jack opened his eyes, daring wary steps he attempted to spot skin that didn't belong to Alice, the sofa would be just fine.

He had never been especially interested in math, but for some reason he was eerily curious about the odds of surviving from the shortcut exit. Maybe he could just go for it, with enough luck, he could get away with a broken rib or two. He rapidly blinked.

 _"Fufufu.."_ She was enjoying herself like no time before, the resisting faces Jack was making were a guilty pleasure to embrace. _Revenge truly was a dish best served cold._

It was true, fact of the matter being that Jack stubbornly refused to come around. She had managed to make him feel better, even when she chaffed him for crying.

Alice had seen through everything, or so she thought..

 _When she cupped his cheek.. It brought back memories, memories he had sealed away, memories that would only visit him in dreams.._

 _Then he thought, "..Maybe if I close my eyes again, I could.."_

 _..._

Punishing him with his own medicine aside, Alice was also lowkey observing him for another purpose. She had never done this kind of thing before, had any _smart guy_ ever fancied ideas like sitting next to her, she'd be sending eye-warnings long before they could try so. One can only guess what would happen if those warnings happened to be taken lightly, _it wouldn't be a pretty sight._

And yet, she was here, trying something she'd never done before, not for a friend, but for someone she had been at odds with since the first day.

First she wondered whether it could be that wise saying, ' _keeping your friends close and your enemies closer'_ , however after a while she realized her actions weren't leaning on such shallow reason. It was just her intuition telling to get closer to Jack, to keep chasing after that distant glimmer he carried with him, _the same glimmer that had long perished for her._

She was terrified when that light also seemed to have left Jack's eyes when he came to with a spiteful look on him... She was afraid she'd back in the abyss, lost with nothing to reach out to.

But, being who he is, he managed to get it back, so easily she was secretly envious of him.

 _...What was that light she had lost?_

 _...What was the beginning of it?_

 _...When did she become the 'dreadful car accident' Jack had seen?_

Alice looked up,

vainly searching for her feelings,

 _as the reality of her world..._

 _...was simply harsh._

 _._

 _._

 _...None had survived..._

 _...There were only ruins_ _..._

 _...Reigned over by her past..._

 _..._

 _That shadow was still standing over the bleeding wrecks,_

 _chuckling, gloating, plundering, crushing everything under its foot,_

 _again and again murdering the sapling she was trying to bring back to life._

 _..._

 _"..All because of that one person.."_

 _..._

 _The emeralds in her eyes not shining anymore,_

 _they were only dead..._

 _...and unforgiving..._

.

.

She let her lashes embrace one another, things of the past, belonged to the past.

 _Her smile was free._

All that mattered was here and now, and here and now she had someone she had only discovered how she loved teasing to bits. She was tired, but she could go on like that forever. She leaned on her elbow, her guest had already been allowed enough time to recover. If only he had a hint of what was coming next. Her lip was foxy.

"Dear diary!" She began in a perky mood, "Today's report included rather interesting findings; It would seem farmers are taking their job all too seriously. Not only they wake up from their bed totally _cheesed off_ , they also cry their eyes out over _spilt milk._ "

She had to give it to herself, that leg-pulling had turned out almost poetic, Jack had to be fuming like a volcano down there for sure.

"I mean, I know I've said I'd never forgive you unless you came begging on your knees, crying till your eyes were dry and all, but alas!"

She was daydreaming, remembering Jack's bitter lament while she was petting him.

"You sure know how to blow expectations away! So I think I might as well forgive y...—"

She decided it was alright to console Jack's head, but.. Hold on.. Her palm kept clamping and unclamping, not catching a hair.

With a frozen smile Alice turned her screen on.

Jack's blinking outline was remarkably docile, it was still sitting on her legs.

 _ **"NOOOOOOO~!" Her soul screamed in panic.**_

 _Where did he go!?_

 _Behind the sofa!_

 _Under the sofa!  
_

 _Under the cushion!?_

 _"D-Don't tell me... The window!"_

 _But even the curtains were untouched... No way... He had just run off somewhere, probably somewhere far away from her._

 _She was sitting at the edge with a shattered expression._

"S-Shit..!" She muttered like a mouse.

 _Alice couldn't believe how she screwed up like this._

"Um..."

 _That humming.. it sounded too close!_

"I don't really.. mind..? If you write it down in your diary..? But could you change the part with the spilt milk? I think it's gonna give me nightmares in the barn."

 _Alice dreaded to her right.._

 _His face... it was too close..!_

A feeling told Jack that he should perhaps ask, it looked like her heart was about to fly off her mouth.

"Are you alright? You look kinda—"

 **"HYAAAAAAA~!"**

And it really did fly off, the very moment he thought about reaching his hand out to her.

Alice hugged her knees and holed up to closest corner as if to shield herself from an assault.

"W-WHAT ARE YOU DOING! A-ALL OF A SUDDEN LIKE THAT! T-TAKING ADVANTAGE OF MY HOSPITALITY, ARE YOU?!"

 _There was that face again... Cornered, scared.. spiteful._

"I warned you not to try anything funny, did I not..!?"

Alice was readying her nails, she was a fool for believing he'd be any different.

But Jack did not seem daunted by any of this, he was just sitting cross-legged and cross-armed, wondering mostly.

"I got a favor to ask." He was blunt.

"HUH!?" That did it, Alice was baring her fang.

 _He had some nerve making requests of her after all that._

"I think there are some things I've forgotten.." His gaze turned to find the fireplace, "..I want to remember what those things meant to me."

Alice didn't know whether she should be scowling or sulking, this was supposed to be the part where Jack was imploring her for mercy, he didn't seem to realize how thin the ice he was treading on was.

"And..?" She glared a silver brow, "Why should _I_ help you remember whatever in the world you've become dark of?"

"Because it's when I'm closing my eyes in your care that small fragments are coming back to me."

 _"K-Ki..!" She mentally shrieked, Jack was back to being a straight arrow, s_ _erved her right for helping him get back on his feet._

 _She wasn't letting go of her knees, not until she had ascertained his intentions._

"H-Hmph.." _Her smirk was afraid,_ "Life is just full of rainbows and unicorns for you, isn't it?"

She provoked him, and he paid her no mind at all. Apparently her heating unit was more interesting to him.

 _She couldn't stand his silence._

"What sort of delusions made you think I was going to help you in the first place?"

She posed a question that had no answer, there was truly nothing to expect from her, and Jack should already know.

 _'I don't think you're a bad person? I thought we could be friends?'_

Please...

If he had an answer, it would be a terrible lie.

He was finally turning around, with an answer apparently.

Alice was certain, as soon as he opened his mouth, their ways were going to part.

"What do you mean?" _He smiled, what an easy question._

"I'm trusting you, that's all."

...

 _"..Eh?.."_

 _..._

 _It was beating._

 _..._

"I mean, at first I was keeping my distance,

but after feeling your hand, I was sure of it."

...

 _"What is he saying..?_

 _How can he spout such a word so easily..?"_

 _..._

"Uh, anyone there?"

...

 _What she had thought to be forever dead in her chest..._

 _..._

 _"You're.._ _trusting me?.."_

 _..._

 _...It was once again beating._

 _..._

Jack was aware touching was off limits, but Alice had turned into a limp statue. She was so unresponsive it was becoming unnerving.

He sent a finger to scout her shoulder, ready to leap off the couch if his fingertip got zapped.

 _"Whoa!" He flinched._

She twitched like a hair's breadth away before nudging her, _did she have proximity sensors equipped on her or something?_

 _"..."_

 _"...!"_

 _Oh boy.. Her face was like the living gloom, it looked like she had seen better days._

 _Jack looked around the room but it was just too dark, a place like this had to have aspirins around here somewhere._

"...I'll do it..."

The cushion lightly sank.

Jack looked down where his hand was sitting, not alone.

"...on one condition."

Her smaller fingers were digging around his, Jack could only watch with a numb jaw as Alice took his hand into hers...

 _"—!"_

 _...and brought their joined hands between them._

 _Those brooding eyes were staring into his soul._

"You have to promise you will stay here for the night... No going out in the rain... No more work."

"Ugh!" He ducked to take cover from the cannonball, "F-For the whole night!? But I still have to—"

She tightened their clasped hands, saying no word. _This wasn't just for the sake of her terms._

The farmer was trying to stretch his neck up the roof, that was one huge stick in his throat.

 _The rumbles were becoming really violent outside, strikes of lightning had even begun flashing through the curtains. The animals may be safe inside the buildings, but they had to be really frightened of the thunder. Outside the buildings only God_ _knew how his crops were holding up, he dreaded to think the catastrophe that might be awaiting him at the farm tomorrow... and as if that weren't_ _an awful lot on his plate to worry about, what if his unfed dog decided to embark on a quest for justice?_ _That'd be the cherry on top._

Jack's head had succumbed to the weight, though a glare's glint was still standing.

"It always has to be a hard bargain with you, doesn't it?" He smirked in knowing defeat.

"You know that better than anyone." She commended, sarcastic as always.

"Alright then." The shape of his hand was shifting, "It's a promise!"

Alice surrendered a snort, taken by the ghost of a smile.

It was just...

There was something too childlike, yet at the same time nostalgic, in their hooked pinkies.

.

.

* * *

 _06.04.18_

 _End of CH.17_


	18. Halcyon Days

_**Rating:**_ _T_

 _ **Disclaimer:**_ _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

.

.

 _Year 1, the 2nd of Winter._

The day Funland's CEO and the farmer kid _'with not a dime to his name'_ finally take their gloves off, the same day the robot crow meets its end at the farmer's unexpectedly shrewd hands.

 _'This can't be.. It had to be a stroke of luck', she tried not to get worked up over it, but just couldn't let it slide._

For all years that had passed, failure had stayed an unknown word in her agenda. Her firstborn robot, even though it may have been a pilot development, it was an investment touching the thousands of Gold, requiring all sorts of rare metal, hundreds of hours of experimentation, only to go _ka-boom_ as if it was originally made to be a spectacular firework.

Alice was haunted after getting to learn the weight of defeat, to the point she couldn't think of anything but her hard work going up in smoke, not allowed to escape from reality even during the few hours she could lay down and rest.

Dreams were supposed to be soothing and relaxing for most people. For Alice, they were the morning tic in her eye.

It was only a few days after that she came to a decision. There was one single person to blame for her plans that were going south, and ironically enough, he happened to be living in the south too. Her danger alerts were going off, telling her that this farmer was going to be trouble in the future. Alice secretly had pointers forming a circle around the south as a precaution.

Nevertheless, a mere hiccup wasn't going to stop her, her mind was back on track.

From that point on, every second and every mental resource in her disposal should be concentrated on ways to capture Leaf Valley. Day and night she'd keep throwing darts at a board that dwelled inside her mind, till the best plan would hit the bullseye.

The detail that not even Renton and Charles had caught on however, was how the bullseye was not actually Leaf Valley.. All she could think of was how to wipe that cocky smirk off his face. Their boss possessed an otherworldly ego, thus the Leaf Valley matter had quickly narrowed down to a very personal level.

But, despite pouring the best of her cunning inside her plans, the more fierce robot mole gets whacked to the ground. In the end, all her efforts had amounted to, were a greater firework.

Before she could know the farmer had already become an obsession, and that's when...

 _The weird dreams began, like.._

 _Having Jack served to her in a hogtie and an apple stuffed in his mouth._

She didn't care as long as it was some effective _and vengeful_ method that would send him back in the city crying and regretting the day he met her.

She had to make it come true if she hoped for any chances of starting the day off with a new and promising outlook when she'd open her window in the morning. Heck, if her lone wish to make him disappear was granted she'd put a cheerful smile on top, she'd not be stingy about it.

...

That's practically how almost all of her first winter in Leaf Valley had passed.

Rewind time a few weeks back and the farmer on her legs would be there for quite a different purpose.

If only life was a line and everything was set in stone. _However, things happened._ Such was the conclusion Alice had arrived at.

Since on a night that was supposed to have been no different from the rest, the CEO had a dream she couldn't quite color sadistic or vengeful. She darted from her bed all sweating and panting in a total fluster, not sure whether what she had experienced was a nightmare. That's about the first time Renton and Charles took notice of her _'fever'._

Her previous dreams, which she had thought to be enough twisted in their own right, were actually only scratching the lid of what was inside..

 _..and what was inside, was making Alice wanting to tear her pigtails out from sheer frustration._

.

.

For the first time since winter came in Alice was spared from having yet another awkward dream. Perhaps this was because her frustration had been quelled one way or the other.

She was certain she could finally enjoy a sleep without turbulences that night.

But apparently, her own soul was listening...

[...]

 _I don't remember much.._

 _..All I know,_

 _is that what I felt back then.._

 _was what you'd call.._

 _'Happiness'_

 _ **Chapter 18. The pinky promise: Part 1 - Halcyon Days**_

 _._

 _._

 _She was always sitting alone by a luxurious bed, ever longing for the moment that'd bring joy in her sullen eyes._

 _Always waiting for the sound that would color her day with meaning._

 ** _*tap*tap*tap*_**

 _The door would eventually start knocking, so lightly and briskly one would think small paws were attacking it._

"MUAA~N!"

 _She'd spring with excitement from her monotonous white chair, already squeezing her treasure in her arms._

"MY ANGEL'S HERE~!"

 _And her impatient arms were already reaching out before the double door could even part._

"ALICE-CHAAAN!"

 _Even the brightest light couldn't shine as bright as her smile._

 _A jolly smile, unafraid to look childish._

 _A smile, warming the heart._

"MOMMY!"

 _Before I knew it my feet were not touching the ground, and our faces were rubbing together,_

 _ever giddily, ever tirelessly._

 _A tiny daughter._

 _And her silly mother._

"How was your day at school today, mm-mm? Did anything exciting happen?"

 _Sometimes I could feel my mom was too curious to know about my days._

 _Like a caged bird, eager to know of the outside world._

"M-mm!"

 _I'd nod with confidence._

"U-uh..."

 _And my mom's expectations would suddenly take an awkward blue color._

 _She already knew what such certainty meant._

"D-Don't tell me... You picked a fight again..?"

"Hmph!"

I'd pout stubbornly.

"Oh dear.. Is that why your hair is so scruffy?"

 _Contrast to my mother, I didn't really like long hair,_

 _I thought they'd only get in the way when I'd get into a fight._

 _So I kept them short, using only a few clips I liked._

 _But after getting into brawls.._

 _I'd return home like that._

"What can I do? They're all a bunch of jerks!"

"Hmm.."

 _And mom would peek at me skeptically._

"By jerks, do you mean.. the _boys?_ "

"Hnng..! Who else!? They're always acting so tough, but.. but they're stupid! And cowards!"

"Fufufu.."

 _After that she'd just giggle, not bothered one bit by her daughter's self-righteous fits._

 _I feel that even though I was so unlike the refined lady she wished me to be.._

 _..She was still proud of me.._

"... They were picking on Zefy again.. making fun of her just because she's wearing glasses,

calling her a nerdy bookworm and other stupid things..."

"W-What!?"

 _Mom flinched._

"Zefy is an adorable little doll! Why would they do such a thing to her!?"

"Because they're _jerks_! They deserved every punch!"

"P-Punch..?"

"U-Ugh..."

 _...I think mom blanked out for a second..._

"Ungh... Sorry.. I didn't mean to upset you.."

 _She gave a sigh as she shook her head._

"What in the world am I going to do with you?"

"Teehee!"

 _I'd smile at her, and she'd smile back at me._

"Alice.."

 _She'd whisper to me, and I'd see her winking._

 _Her pinky was close to our faces, waiting for mine to seal the secret._

 _Dad wouldn't have to hear a word about my mischiefs._

 _Me and mom,_

 _we were partners in crime._

 _We couldn't imagine a world without one another._

"Mom, let's promise something new!"

"Oh? Like what?"

"Let's promise to be together!"

 _I couldn't understand that wistful shimmer in her eyes back then._

 _But, our pinkies sealed the promise._

 _._

 _._

 _A few weeks later two of my father's men showed up at school, the black suits._

 _I knew they wouldn't show themselves unless father had sent them._

 _To see my father's always stern men so uneasy, fixing their ties as if they were being choked by them._

 _..it was an omen.._

 _"Lady Alice..._ _Your mother is..."_

 _._

 _._

 _The pinky promise, a symbol of unity, trust, an oath that could not be broken._

 _An oath, that made me shed the most bitter of tears._

 _._

 _._

"...Liar..."

 _..But even as I blamed her,_

 _even as my tiny hands balled and shook from the betrayed promise,_

 _all I could see.._

...

 _..was her jolly smile.._

 _._

 _._

* * *

 _21.05.18_

 _End of CH.18_


	19. A jewel in the rain

_**Rating:**_ _T_

 _ **Disclaimer:**_ _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

.

.

 _One time I accidentally overheard a story between two maids inside our mansion._ _How a man, who had been going down the wrong path, a person who knew of no pity or remorse, always having his eyes fixed towards the far end of the road.._ _one day suddenly told his driver to pull over the car._ _What had captivated the man's cold blue eyes,_ _was the sight of a lone silver-haired girl.._

 _staring at a rainy sky._

 _ **Chapter 19. The Pinky Promise: Part 2 - A jewel in the rain**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

"I said pull over."

"But boss! They might still be _— Eeek_..!"

The driver realized there was no negotiation when a thunderous bang came from the backseat and a wing mirror informed him of the rear door that was already flapping about. Panicking, he almost ripped out the handbrake to bring the vehicle to a sudden still.

 _They were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by rural, uncultivated land. Tall grass was spreading everywhere, only split apart by the detour they had been following._

After confirming his surroundings he stepped out. The ground was too squishy and muddy to walk on, but he cared little about dirtying the lustrous black shoes he was wearing. Carrying a shut umbrella over his shoulder the man couldn't help but wonder as he studied the mysterious air about her.

"Young lady...What are you doing...?"

 _Hearing that the driver bumped his head on the steerwheel, hopeless. "Way to go boss..."_

This man would come bearing no courtesies with him. Even his way of showing some rare concern would come out as vicious and threatening. _Not quite the ladykiller, not at all._

Despite being greeted with hostility the girl just stood there with not a care in the world, smiling up the sky as if something was happening up there.

Her clothes had struck bewilderment in him. Why would someone be wearing _flats_ out in these parts? _That'd be as good as walking barefooted._

 _..Grey flats.. and a grey floral dress.. Like all that would be colorful had been washed out in the rain._

 _A melancholic autumn, in the form of a longing girl._

"I asked you a question." The rod of the umbrella bounced on his shoulder, issuing an order, "Why do you stand there as if you're waiting for the sky to fall on you?"

But the soaked girl just slowly closed her eyes, serenely enjoying the rain pellets gracing her skin.

...

 _"...Could she be..?"_

 _..._

 _Deaf, perhaps blind as well. The way she was acting indicated as much._

Turning to the side he pondered whether his suspicious treatment of her might have been uncalled for.

It wouldn't be hard for such an individual to lose their way and wind up in all sorts of god-forsaken places. For all he knew she didn't catch a bus because she couldn't hear or see it coming, or worse yet, because some bastard thought it would be funny to ditch her out there. Even though he was only in his early 30's his eyes had already seen too many cruel things to not know. There was so much foul stench out there one had to become the stench itself in order not to smell the world.

The man drove his free hand through a comb of sleeked back raven hair to tighten his ponytail, _a common haircut for yakuza members._ The girl was lucky she didn't bump on someone else of his kind, she could've been seen as a witness, and witnesses always ended up with the short end on short notice. She seemed like a daydreamer, shut inside the bubble of her own secluded world. Not being able to see, or not being able to hear...

 _She couldn't imagine how fortunate she was, to be oblivious of this world's foul smell._

In any case, the least he could do for her, was to call for someone to get her home.

"But it's so pretty, don't you think?"

"—!?" The velvet touch of an angelic voice caused the aloof driver to blink from the steerwheel.

"..." While the unflinching mob boss was unsheathing knives in his eyes as he turned.

 _"Oh crap..!"_ The driver almost yelped when he noticed, "B-Boss..! Your... _—!_ "

Because when he had decided to lower his umbrella, and let his arm fall limp, he had decided it was alright to let his guard down around her.

 _But she could hear._

 _She could talk._

 _... and obviously..._

Going by her well-working eyes, that could smell what was mixed alongside water and trickling down his black glove's fingertips.

 _...she could see._

 _"This is bad_ _—This is really REAALLY bad_ _—!"_

The driver was breaking out in cold sweat, _that girl had actually seen something she shouldn't have._ Now it didn't matter how much of a pretty damsel in distress she was. He could already see his boss's hand slithering behind his waist to pull out what would silence her. Becoming a _ladykiller_ this way was just too wrong.

"I'm sorry, young lady." Rules were rules. He was covertly pulling back the hammer of his revolver, "As for your question, I'm afraid I'm not much of a rain person."

Declaring so he revealed his bleeding arm.

 _He was used to the pain, he wasn't feeling it._

 _He didn't even need to aim at this distance._

 _All he needed, was her head to stay still._

 _Calmly, he was waiting for the moment a horrifying realization would take shape in her angelic expression, that's when it'd be the end of the road for her._

A killer's icy stare, a bleeding arm, and a cocked gun aimed between her eyes.

They did not faze her.

"..."

Faced with such a crisis, her concern had simply returned to the clouds.

 _"What a wretched woman", he gathered._

 _She wasn't breaking down, she wasn't begging for her life._

 _She didn't even seem to wish to have any last words._

 _For some reason, this woman..._

 _Was not afraid of losing her life._

 _Indeed, his very first impression about that girl, was that of someone who had long forfeited their life._

 _Sadly enough, this man did not like loose ends._

"...Tsk..."

"Boss you have to hurry! I think I can hear something in the distance!"

His underling warned, but what would have been a sure-kill gunfire was never heard.

Instead, an umbrella flapped open.

"HEY!" The girl snapped when her sky was covered by black. "That's just mean!"

He cracked a wry smirk at her dissatisfaction.

"Won't you at least tell me your name?"

The woman was pouting like a child that had its toy taken away.

"It's Alicia." She crossed her arms and looked away, still pouting angrily.

 _"She won't mind a gun in her face, but will get mad over an umbrella that steals her sky."_

 _._

 _He'd have never believed, how this world,_ _full of stench,_

 _could still be hiding such a jewel.._

 _under a rainy sky._

 _._

"..What about you..?" She asked facing distantly, but her crossed arms were slowly folding in her front.

"Hm?" His brow didn't follow.

"Your name!"

 _She had snapped again, not afraid to show her impatient side._

"Don't you think it's only fair to tell your name to the person who gave you theirs?"

 _And then she was scolding him, with such a fierce look on her soft face too._

"My name then.."

"BOSS YOU CAN'T! THIS IS _—..!_ "

 _The driver begged him to reconsider, figures of the underworld revealing their names was just spelling for trouble._

But without turning an eye he had gestured his underling for silence.

"Silver." He answered with a leering confidence.

"Sil..ver..." She mused on her chin as she let the name sink in.

 _"Sil..ver..!?" The driver was foaming through a heart attack, for a moment he was scared to death._

"Ku...Kuhuhu!"

"Hm.. Did I say something funny?" He inquired with a hurt expression.

"It's just.. Your name's Silver... But, I'm the one with the silver hair?"

 _Of course, somewhere in her heart, she was aware this was just a name he came up with on the spot._

 _Alicia was just too amused with how this man's honesty couldn't hide._

 _Her emerald eyes had already been claimed by this bad liar._

"That said, Alicia.." He made an assertive pause, "Will you tell me what you were doing out here?"

 _Her smile diminished, but didn't disappear._

"I had to.. I didn't know if I'd ever get the chance again.."

"The chance.. for what?" His frown was puzzled.

"..To listen.."

Not fully understanding her intention, Silver cast his umbrella to the side for Alicia to see.

"..For one last time.. I wanted to listen..

The beautiful song the rain whispers.."

His eyes widened to withstand the shock.

Silver was not a dim-witted man, he didn't need to ask more questions to understand. For a person to be speaking such words, there was only one answer. Now he could understand why Alicia was giving off such a wistful breeze.

"Alicia, come with me."

"WHA _—!?_ " She flinched when he suddenly wrapped an arm around her waist, but Alicia quickly squirmed to retaliate. Her body might be weak, but it could still put a hundred scratches on a thug's face.

"I don't give a damn what it'll take me.. But I promise you.."

" _—...?_ "

 _Something unexpected happened. Alicia was feeling a soothing warmth... 'Was that the warmth a girl would feel in a man's arms?', she wondered. It was so.._

 _...Red?_

 _"HYAAA! Y-You idiot! If you're going to hug me at least do it with the arm that doesn't have a bullet hole!" Her face was rosier than roses, as was her dress._

"..You will be able to hear it again.. The song in the rain.."

Her struggle ceased, but..

"—Alicia!?" Silver's heart pounded, suddenly having to hold her body for her.

Before passing out from the words that had brought her a world of happiness, she wanted to be able to look him in the eye, to make him see, and remember, this woman's tears of happiness.

 _"...Thank you..."_

[...]

.

.

* * *

 _23.05.18_

 _End of CH.19_


	20. Silver

_**Rating:**_ _T_

 _ **Disclaimer:**_ _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

.

.

Silver was quiet, as were his eyes of sky-blue.

His revolver's muzzle moved to gently caress a pouring strand away from the girl's unconscious smile.

She looked so peaceful, like even if she could die now, it wouldn't matter. _Because she was happy._

Strangely swept away by this girl's newly found happiness, glimpses of what _'could have been'_ had started to flow, showing him a world where his choices could have been different, a world in which he could touch this girl's hair without needing a gun in his hand. But, for a criminal's swift and remorseless cunning to start doubting, to start blurring.. It was like suddenly sinking inside the mire he had always learnt to avoid.

For even after climbing a mountain of corpses, even after knowing all too well how he had chosen to walk down a path with no redemption.. _the pitiful dregs of his conscience were still there._

Even so, though he was well recognizing the flaw residing within his killer's mindset, he had never stooped as low as to be a pathetic escapist who'd dream of days full of sunshine. Should a killer ever make the mistake and allow himself to start feeling the things around him, should his heart of stone turn fickle... it would only mean the end.

 _'Men like him, they were not allowed to dream.'_

Letting his lids rest for an extended moment,

as the sound of a pursuing engine was approaching ever closer.

 _The calm, right before the storm, like the many times before._

Silver's dispassionate glare awakened to fly past the bullet-riddled rear window.

 _"This is my world."_

 _ **Chapter 20. The Pinky Promise: Part 3 - Silver**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

Briefly examining the loaded wheel-gun he gave the cylinder a quick spin. _*click*._

 _"Six rounds."_

 _A heads-up on his remaining lives._

 _Thinking back how crooks like him should not deserve even the single life they had, six lives were more than generous._

 _His lip curled with sarcasm._

"Here they come, Lucky."

"Ha! You mean they haven't had enough yet?"

"Yeah.. Looks like they're back for more."

Invited to a date with certain death the two men couldn't help but try to lighten up the mood by humoring their situation.

For soon, hell on earth would break loose.

 _ ***POW*zzzING*SHATTER***_

"SWEET MOTHER OF JESUS!"

Lucky shrieked when one of the enemy's bullets knocked off his beret cap.

"Boss I think they got me! Boss! Boss I can't breathe!"

The car was steering left and right, tires screeching from the clumsy turns.

"You're fine boy."

 _ ***POW*POW*ZZing***_

 _He returned a couple of rounds, respectfully greeting them back._

"How can you be so sure they didn't get me!?"

"That mouth of yours is still blurting."

"..O-Oh.. Right."

"Don't worry.."

Silver's elbow smashed through a big glass piece that was dangling about, the cat was out of the bag anyway.

"..You're not my _lucky_ driver for nothing."

...

In a bleary light her dizzy eyes were slowly coming to.

She couldn't hear, her ears were buzzing.

Glass shards and dust were flying about everywhere.

In the midst of everything,

a hidden, wistful smile.

Invisible lines kept grazing him,

Cheek, neck, shoulder,

pieces of him were tearing off his flesh to turn into streams of blood.

And yet...

Even as he covered behind his elbow from the exploding shards,

even as death's graze was marching closer and closer upon him.

His smile would not wane for a second.

Alicia couldn't fathom why Silver was showing such a smile.

 _Like a child caught up in a snowfight,_

 _shyly reminiscing days of joy._

 _..._

 _"Hmph. Last round, huh?"_

A look of grief gathered as he eyed through the empty chambers.

Turning to his shoulder he could easily sense his driver's hands shaking. Lucky was at his limit as well.

But most importantly, down there...

 _Her heart was worried sick about him._

 _"Too bad." He regrettably conceded._

When Silver bowed smilingly Alicia saw her world fade to nothing.

 _In her eyes, this was a farewell._

...

She wasn't mistaken.

Somewhere in the deepest parts of his heart Silver had been longing for the day he'd be put down.

He had been deliberately losing his edge lately, allowing himself to be shot when under normal circumstances one could swear bullets were afraid of him.

"Today was supposed to be the day.."

He snorted in dismay.

"Sil..ver.."

A sickly voice was trying to reach out to him.

He saw the tears welling up in her beseeching eyes.

 _"Too bad.."_

 _He reiterated._

 _..._

 _"—!"_

In the end, it had all happened so fast it seemed like a blur to her.

The way Silver decisively extended his arm out of the rear window.

The things he had been bidding farewell to with a smile...

 _Gone._

Silver was done playing hide and seek.

...

 _All it took was a single gunshot._

 _..._

 _And their pursuers were not pursuing them anymore._

"Boss... what.. happened...?"

Putting his gun down to rest, his attention was all over the surprised silver-haired damsel.

"I guess.. Their driver's name.. wasn't Lucky."

The selfish smirk released Alicia's breath, who could finally let her eyes rest knowing Silver was still there with her.

[...]

It was a true miracle how all three of them had survived this insane shootout. In fact, one would reasonably argue why the group of thugs that had been after Silver's head had turned tail easy like that after a single member was taken out. It was bizarre, as in most cases the shooter sitting next to the driver would grab the steerwheel and the chase would not stop until either side dropped dead.

Even with the driver out for the count there were still two perfectly able shooters, while in the car in front of them only Silver was holding a gun. They still had the numbers... _so why?_

This single question had been sticking like a lump in Lucky's dry throat, who still couldn't comprehend why he was still clinging to the steerwheel like his life depended on it. His hands were so cold and damp, goosebumps were all over the back of his neck...

 _"Boss.. What happened.. back there..?" Even his eyeball was too frozen to dare sneaking a rear view from the mirror._

Lucky may not have been able to see it, but he had felt it _, what their pursuers had seen._

Even though it had surely lasted but for a second, the eerily lethargic flow of time was making everything slow and clear to them,

 _so slow and clear the image burning inside their eyes was opening certain black holes._

.

 _This feeling, when one dreadfully realizes,_

 _that what is supposed to be a cornered and injured cat,_

 _shooting its desperate paws to struggle..._

 _Turns out to be a playful tiger,_ _that was simply messing with you._

 _But once it's had enough fun playing,_ _the tiger hears its belly rumble.._

 _It gets up.._ _It stares at you.._

 _With absolutely still, feral slits._

 _...The tiger doesn't want to play with you anymore..._

 _._

 _._

 _It wants to murder you._

.

.

* * *

 _25.05.18_

 _End of CH.20_


	21. The perfect dress

_**Rating:**_ _T_

 _ **Disclaimer:**_ _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

.

.

Alicia had been told to stay inside the car as Silver implied he had a private matter to discuss with his driver outside. Further down the splitting path, concealed between bushes, a cab was waiting. Silver had arranged this rendezvous beforehand, unbeknownst to Lucky.

 _"Lucky.."_ _Alicia blinked a couple of times, still recovering from a bolt from the blue._

She could have been wrong, but during the one time her tired eyes were able to squeeze and focus towards the two men, a very shocking detail struck her.

Even back then Alicia had found it curious how Silver's never-seen driver would speak in such a juvenile voice, how he'd yelp and panic over every little bump in the road. To be so jumpy, yet to be a driver carrying out shootouts... _something hadn't been adding up._

 _The blonde driver, timidly holding his beret between his hands,_ _was nothing more than a teenage boy,_ _roughly sixteen years old._ _Not only way younger than Silver,_ _but younger than her as well._ _If she recalled correctly, Silver did once call him such..._ _But she'd have never guessed how Lucky was in fact, literally..._

 _A boy._

 _ **Chapter 21. The Pinky Promise: Part 4 - The perfect dress**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

"Lucky..."

 _On that day, in the middle of a forked road..._

"...This is where we _.._."

 _Silver and Lucky would..._

...

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

"—part ways?!" Lucky had flinched at Silver's last phrase, "Boss, is this some kind of _—...!_ "

Cutting his question short Silver's arm threw a heavy briefcase at Lucky, who stumbled backwards.

"W-What is this..!?"

"All that you've earned with your hard work."

Lucky looked at Silver's resolute posture, then at the briefcase in his arms, then at Silver again.

"Boss.. Why are you giving me... _—_ I don't understand..!"

The ache for an honest answer creased his eyes of amber. Lucky understood well what was inside that briefcase. What he couldn't understand was why his boss was suddenly casting him off like that.

Making a roof over Lucky's justified bitterness Silver began to lumber... and lumber... until they were standing shoulder to shoulder, yet in opposite directions.

"I.." _He was looking up into the sky,_ "..I made a vow the other day.."

 _"Vow..?" Lucky's head reacted a little._

"..That in the unlikelyhood we didn't bite the big one today, I would see you off."

 _"...Un..likely..hood...?"_

 _He gave it a frown, but Lucky trusted he was just imagining things._

"Pft.." He snorted all worries away, "So you want me out because you want to look after me?"

What a silly reason to stress over, his boss was just having a sentimental moment. Sure, it could happen sometimes. Truth be told, today they had gotten away with quite the close shave.

"Boss, you're sweating it too much."

His foot pivoted, ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with this man the way it should be, sharing a common view of the sunset.

"Remember, I'm your lucky driv _—"_

"Even _LUCK_ runs out!"

Lucky had been thwarted midway turning, cradling an ambushed stare towards Silver's unjoking expression.

"..and when it eventually does, it will already be too late for you to realize how brittle luck _alone_ can be.."

An irritable vigor began swelling inside the boy's eyes after hearing all that crazy doomsaying out of the blue.

"So what?" The briefcase fell as his arms asked wide. "If push comes to shove I know how to _—_ "

"No. You don't."

Silver's absolute gaze put chains on Lucky's rebellious mouth, he could tell what the boy was thinking.

"You don't know how it feels to hold the weight of a gun.. or how pointing at someone behind the gun looks like.. you don't even know what _pulling the trigger_ means."

 _"Gun-this, gun-that, GUN-THIS, GUN-THAT!..." Lucky was growing frustrated, all this lecture about guns felt like Silver belittling him for never getting to know what a gun was like._

"Do you want to know _why_ , you don't know any of this?"

 _"...Cause you never let me." He grudgingly recalled._

"It's because not once did it cross my mind to put a gun in your hand. I'd rather put a bullet under my chin than allow _a child_ to smell the stench _I_ smell."

"..." Lucky was sweeping at pebbles, this was getting nowhere. His boss was just going on about this 'stench' spiel again.

Because even if Silver said so, Lucky could more or less guess what that infamous stench was. _Blood was smelling like copper and corpses were smelling of decay.._ You could well stumble on one of those inside a dumpster. Big deal.

Of course, what Lucky had failed to grasp, was that Silver was speaking of a different kind of stench. Someone like Lucky, who didn't have it in him to hurt an ant, much less kill an actual person, would never know of what Silver meant.

 _It was their eyes._

 _A futile cry for help, flaring inside your victim's stares as you slowly raise a gun in their face.. a_ _nd then a_ _spite... Towards you, who's pulling the trigger, and will forever and irreversibly take everything away from them._ _Their fear and spite, forever reflected back in your eyes, forever becoming your own fear and spite._ _That single image of a cornered and scared human being, trying to fight back with spite alone,_ _was the stench Silver was talking about._

 _...and the stench, Lucky, who would always avert his eyes from, had stayed clear of._

 _If possible, Silver wanted Lucky to remain forever clear of this horrible stench._

 _However, for Lucky.._

"But all those guys you've put down... They were bad guys.. Gun smugglers, drug dealers, slave traders, murderers, kidnappers... _rapists too.._ " _He reluctantly looked to the side,_ "They all deserved what was coming for them..." _He muttered._

"...Deserved?"

A quite tide of wrath drilled into the boy's ears.

But the boy... was already glaring at him, _with a low head._

 _This was his unspoken disapproval._

"Then tell me this.. If murderers deserve to die, wouldn't you say _I_ , deserve it the most?"

 _..His boss... deserving to die..~?_

The suggestion had left Lucky gaping.

"N-NO! Of course not!" _He was scared he might have sounded disrespectful,_ "Boss is nothing like those rotten bastards! They were all twisted and evil to the core! So someone had to—"

"True, someone _had to_. But, what exactly defines as _evil.._?"

 _Come on..! What was up with all these questions? They had been all this time together and they were suddenly beating one big dead horse. Silver was friggin' schooling him._

"That's... people who do bad.. _wrong things_ , to others.. right?"

Silver closed his eyes as he finally nodded, "Indeed."

 _"PHEW..!" Lucky was out of breath, he was afraid this would go on forever._

 _..._

"But..." Silver's sharp pupils had returned for round two, "..Does that give us the right to _kill_ those who are in the wrong?"

"BUT WE _ARE_ RIGHT!" Lucky's arms flared, desperate to open his eyes.

"No, Lucky.. We are not.."

Silver could clearly see how his statement had left a powerless expression on Lucky.. _but he had to remind him._

"There is nothing _righteous_ in someone who takes another's life, because there is no _justice_ by taking another's life... To _kill_ evil, does not make the _law_."

 _"Tch..!"_ _Lucky despised that word,_ "It's because dirty cops and judges won't do their job that boss has to get his hands dirty! It's always been like this!"

"Even so, that is but a choice I made."

Lucky saw no regret in Silver's words, only the shell of a dead ambition as his boss turned towards a blood-stained sunset.

.

"I want you to remember, Lucky..

There is nothing good or righteous in stripping someone of their life,

no matter how twisted or evil they may be.

Once you pull the trigger to take a life..

There is only _stench_.

.

Lucky kept a barren look as he drew shapes on the ground dust with a twig, sitting on crouched knees. It was still a hard thing to realize his boss's wishes, but he had to look up and start thinking for himself.

"Well, I've always kinda wanted to travel west to America if chance knocked my door.." He looked high over his shoulder "Boss... What about you?"

"..Hrm.." He grunted, not really warmed up to the idea, "..I'm also thinking of.. turning over a new leaf."

"What about the 'White Tiger' clan?"

"..I'll have to make readjustments in that old business, I suppose.."

"Old? So you're planning to start fresh?"

Silver lazily bat his lids at the sunset, he hadn't really given it much thought. An hour ago he wouldn't have known if he'd come out in one piece.

"..I've been into the mob business for as long as I can remember.. Instead of burning things to the ground, I could.. start building, perhaps.. even expanding, I suppose.."

"Start expanding.. Got something in mind..?"

"...I.."

Silver slowly lifted his chin, wondering if he really had the right to wish for such things.

"..I want to build a place that will be able to provide for her.."

 _"...Her...?"_

"..a place that will be fun for her.."

 _"...Who's 'her'...?"_

"I'll need... a fun name, for a fun business.."

Silver was digging his cheek in awkward thought, he was not good at this.

After giving it a few seconds, his lip finally moved, as his new business already had a fun name.

"FunLand.

What do you think about it..?"

 _There were a few stalactites hanging from Lucky's merry approval._

[...]

Talking about their futures for a while longer, the two men finally saw each other off.

 _But, as Lucky was walking towards the cab..._

...

 _"...Turning over a new leaf..?_

 _..Readjust..?_

 _..Build..?_

 _..Expand..?_

 _..Funland..?"_

 _.._

 _"Are you kidding me...?_

 _.._

 _..._

 _ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?"_

 _..._

 _Lucky's once scared fingers had turned into a claw wide enough to seize the bad joke on his expression._

 _There was only one person to blame, t_ _he one who stole everything from him._

 _[Her]_

 _..._

 _"Alicia..."_

 _..._

 _She was so pretty._

 _Long silver hair, innocent green eyes,_

 _even her colorless dress looked so beautiful on her,_

 _and it had climbed to an even greater beauty when it was soaked in blood._

 _..._

 _A shame it was not her own blood, for_ _had it been hers,_

 _then her dress would've ascended to true perfection._

 _..._

 _...But..._

 _What if it 'could be' her blood..._

 _..._

 _"Alicia... Alicia..."_

 _Rings within rings were invading his maddened-yellow stare,_

 _Wickedness oozing from the corners of a grinning mouth,_

 _Only speaking of a lowly, bemused chuckle._

 _..._

 _Lucky would have his revenge._

 _One day, he would make her wear a dress,_

 _bathed in true perfection._

 _._

.

* * *

 _25.05.18_

 _End of CH.21_


	22. Oathbreakers & Oathkeepers

_**Rating:**_ _T_

 _ **Disclaimer:**_ _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

.

.

 _The 'silver-haired girl' and 'Silver'._

 _That's how the maids would speak of the mysterious figures in this tale._

 _It would only be many years later, after I lost my mom, that I would come to realize who the 'silver-haired girl' and 'Silver' were._

 _A few puzzle pieces had been kept secret in the maids' story, but my heart was telling me... the 'Silver-haired girl' and 'Silver'.._

 _...were my mom and dad..._

 _...and that the person who had confided the story to the maids, from her point of view, was none other..._

 _Than my mom..._

 ** _._**

 **.**

 _ **Chapter 22. The Pinky Promise: End - Oathbreakers & Oathkeepers**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 _I was still a little girl, sitting on my mom's bed, reminiscing of that story with a forlorn smile, because I hadn't realized sooner. I guess this was what she was feeling when she had smiled at me back then. In her own caring way, she was parting with me._ _If I raised my eyes now, I would still see her sitting on that chair by the window, smiling at me, even though she wasn't there..._

 _...It's not like I didn't know... I always knew how my mom had a sickly body, but I'd have never imagined that one day she would leave me like that, without a word._

 _My father also knew._ _. Because to him, the destined meeting with my mom, was a sign from God._

 _Praying to Him for the day he could meet his end and be free of the torment of his sins,_ _God had found father's prayer to be ever selfish, an easy way out that could be called all but atonement._ _He would punish my father for his selfish wish._ _For even though my father could not unmake what he had done, he was going to find a way to build back from the ashes of what he had destroyed._ _A second chance, to be someone different, and to provide happiness for my sickly mother, who had opened his eyes, would be his lone path to atonement._

 _That was my father's conviction._

 _He put_ _his old days behind him, becoming a man that was going to keep his promise, both to God, and my mom. Gifted with_ _sharp judgement and great fortitude, he'd quickly come to learn how all this time he could have used his talents to rise to be a renowned and successful businessman, one who could build fun places for the people to be, providing so much happiness to the world he would eventually see God beckoning to him through my mom's approving smile._

 _Because with the appropriate treatment and medication, my mom's life was no longer in danger._

 _..._

 _But, even after he had accomplished so much, even after he had brought her light back from the brink of extinction... His promise to her seemed ever faraway._

 _"Alicia, this tarnished world is not meant for a gem like you."_

 _My father, having gone through hell and high water to prevent my mother's weak light from going out, had turned extremely overprotective of her. Because despite turning a new leaf, his notorious legend had already been carved deep into the underworld's records. 'The mafia boss who enforced the law to the lawless'._

 _Those who would ambitiously seek him out to challenge his legend would still come for his head from time to time, and even though my father took confidence in handling these matters with flexibility and discretion, my mother was a whole different story. She was precious to him, unlike anything else. He knew well from experience he could not have her anywhere near him, especially when she was expecting their soon to be born baby._

 _To keep her away from danger's harm he participated in a real estate auction, providing her a home that would be no less equipped with the luxuries of a palace. All that she would ever need, she'd find it there._

 _But, for my mom, this was little different to being held hostage inside a decorated cage. Even though she had everything indeed, she didn't have the man she loved by her side. The birth of her daughter, and watching her grow, were her sole reason to live. No one had realized my mom had relapsed from extreme depression, she was always hiding behind a smile for the sake of her daughter._ _But, once she had made certain her daughter would grow up to be a woman that would fight for those who were dear to her, a woman that would follow her heart..._

 _My mom would sleep at ease that night.._

 _...to never wake up again..._

 _She had fallen into a deep state of coma. The doctors themselves were shocked this hadn't been the result of an overdose suicide attempt, it was more like her body had decided to shut down on its own._

 _The doctors might have not been able to provide specific answers.. but I knew... Trapped inside a cage that was dressed as her home, she couldn't step outside... 'She couldn't hear the song whispered by the rain'... My father.. had not kept his promise to her..._

 _If she couldn't have her happiness, my mom would rather never wake up again._

 _Even after grieving for months my father could still not forgive himself. He never would, for he had already failed his wife, his most precious gem. He swore he wasn't going to make the same mistake with his daughter as well._ _All that he denied his wife, he would give his daughter. The f_ _reedom, to see the world for herself._

 _But even then, mistakes were made..._

 _._

 _._

 _._

 _Because every day, all I could do was look back into my father's mistakes, so I would never make the same mistakes he did._

 _But, by looking back, I had failed to look in front of me, I had failed to notice how the years were breezing by._

 _Before I knew, I wasn't a little girl anymore, but a seventeen-year old woman, already in the image of her mother._

 _._

 _[...How was I supposed to know...]_

 _That night..._

 _._

 _._

 _As I told myself I couldn't keep looking back anymore, the sky thundered and the room flashed white around me._ _What I discovered upon parting my lashes... was creepy._ _Colors had never returned after that flash._ _The room wasn't blank, it was more as if everything had been turned white._ _The floor, the furniture... even me..._ _Empty husks, reaped of their soul._

 _I was scared._ _I wanted to leave._ _But that moment, as if listening to my thoughts..._ _The walls started to draw closer.._ _Very slowly.. an unfathomable fear was animating, and getting closer..._ _I could not speak._ _I could not breathe. I could not move._ _I was cursed to watch everything draw closer and closer._

 _The door.. It was towering over me._ _Then it creaked._ _It creaked._ _It creaked._ _Drilling the sound into my frantic heart_ _...It was opening_ _... But beyond it_ _... was jet-black..._ _I was staring into an abyssal hole,_ _a dark passageway to a very scary place._

 _Faintly... I could hear a distant chuckle._

 _I didn't want to realize it._

 _I didn't want to realize it._

 _[Something was lurking inside there]_

 _As if it was born from my fears,_ "No..! NO! STAY BACK!"

 _the silhouette of a long skeletal arm was shyly creeping out._

"I finally found you... ALICIA!"

"No..No..I'm not..!"

 _Its bony fingers were making crackling sounds_ _wrapping around my throat._ _I was chocking._ _I was powerless._ _But the worst.. had yet to come..._ _As I desperately struggled for my life,_ _from within the void,_ _two gleeful blank eyes were leering at me._ _Soon I would see the linings of a horrid smile, shaped like a black pit,_ _delighted at my struggle._ _.. and another skeletal arm, slowly born from the door..._ _loosely holding the shadow of a gun that was meant for my face. Black roots began crawling out of the door, spreading all over the white walls like a plague. Everything was slowly going dark, swallowed by that thing..._

"Someone..."

 _...With the last ounce of resistance I had inside me, I fought back..._

"SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME _~!_ "

 _"Gwaah~!? Oomph..!"_

 _But no one would save me that day._ _My mom was gone._ _My father was away._ _And I was alone, with a monster in my closet._

 _"Arck... My head..."_

"...?"

 _It sounded like someone else was struggling too, though the voice sounded so faraway._

 _"Alice? Alice wake up!"_

 _I didn't know who it was,_ _but the monster's grip on me was loosening._ _The gun had stopped pressing on my face._

 _"Alice you're having a nightmare! Wake up!"_

 _I realized there was something behind me... An orb of light, so small, yet_ _radiating so brilliantly the monster couldn't stand it._

 _This was my chance._ _I slipped away, rolled the other way and pounced to grab that orb._

 _[...]_

"Alice? Alice what are you.. _— **WHOA~!**_ "

She bumped on something and they landed with a fierce thud.

A groan was struggling under her weight.

"Talk about.. jumpy dreams..!" Her pigtail had draped like a blindfold on him.

 _A familiar voice.. and familiar tender hands holding her shoulders secure,_ she mused. But, she felt their purpose was to keep her at arm's length, maybe even push her away, if the meek resistance she was feeling was anything to go by. Whoever it was could at least have welcomed her with a hug, she wasn't going to bite after being saved. She hadn't even opened her eyes yet and she was already getting that _'Can't have your cake and eat it too'_ kind of unsatisfaction.

In any case, she didn't feel her life in danger anymore, it was safe enough to start pulling up.

 _"Holy~..!"_ _Jack's flat lungs finally gasped for air._ _Two more seconds buried under there and he'd have croaked... under..._ "..." _weight... pressure._

He was crawling back on his elbows to get a grip.

"You almost gave me a heart attack when you started thrashing about... _You kicked me off the couch!_ " He grumbled to himself, rubbing his bullied temple, _"..I was having such a nice dream too.."_

"..."

But Jack wondered why his brows had trouble coming down like a mountain was in the way.

Maybe something having to do with Alice taking this a bit all too calmly. Normally she'd have jumped away with a recoil, crawling back in retreat and cursing until her back met some wall.

 _Something was off with her._

 _"..What is this feeling.."_

 _Something in her stare was screaming for frustration._

 _"..Why are those eyes irritating me so much.."_

 _In those eyes Alice could not see Jack, but the mirror of all that was frustrating her._

 _She could see herself bursting into fits, cursing on her knees, showing something unsightly for a woman.._

 _..and him just standing there, resolute and quiet like a firmly planted boulder, telling her he'd always be there if she hadn't learnt her lesson._

 _"...I hate him!"_

"—!" The room flashed white from a close lightning strike, but Jack didn't shield his eyes.

He was staring wide at something that had happened momentarily before the flash, staring at it even as the ensuing rumble faded in the distance.

Five sharp nails were hooked on the right side of his face, shuddering, thirsting to sink under his skin and claw him to ribbons. Alice wasn't glaring, but there was something cold and vicious in her expression, something she had woken up with.

But Jack wasn't going to ask, they were already past that point. Half-asleep or not, he could feel her ill intent to hurt him smolder, quietly, but surely. If a staring contest was what she wanted as soon as they got up from bed, he'd gladly give her one.

Astonished at his audacity only a hair was holding back her claw...

...and that was because alongside the memories that were driving her mad, _there were also..._

 _._

 _._

 _"Alright then. It's a promise!"_

 _._

 _._

Alice was back to simply touching the cheek she so much wanted to harm, for in the end...

"H-Hey.." The staring contest was over, Jack had blinked.

He saw a bead leaving a glistening trail as it travelled down the dark of her face. But Alice was more solemn than ever.

"...You promised..." She smiled down to herself, "..but you weren't there for me."

 _"...Wha..?" Jack blinked again._

"...You weren't there.. when I needed you..."

"..." He was certain Alice was still half asleep.

What she was saying was making no sense at all, and if he were to look a few minutes back, nothing was making sense ever since she had 'woken up' _,_ but for a single fact. She was crying out to someone for help in her nightmare, so she was probably still having some kind of lucid-dream hallucinations, as his father would put it. But, if that were the case, it'd be dangerous trying to snap her out of it. His dad had once said it could cause damage to the person with the hallucinations.

So, what was he going to do?

He couldn't remember making a promise _to be there for her_ , and then apparently _not_ being there for her. _The only promise he made her was that he'd stay there for the night._

 _Alice was probably hallucinating... of someone else._

His hands were tied for good this time. All he could do, was hope.

"Alice.. Please..." _He couldn't meet her in the eyes, she was seeing someone else_ "..Wake up.."

 _"..Wake up..?"_

 _Her lip slowly discovered the irony as Jack said those words._

 _._

 _"Alice you're having a nightmare! Wake up!"_

 _._

 _Because in her nightmare, while she was trying to escape from that monster, reaching for that light..._

 _She saw him, c_ _alling out to her. A person radiating so brilliantly even the most vile nightmare had cowered._

 _"...In the end, I guess you did save me... Because you didn't let it happen again..."_

Jack's troubled eyes were drifting away in vain search for a shelter, but unlike the rain outside, this was a rain his thoughts could not run away from. His heart was sinking after seeing her like that again, he still hadn't been able to get over the first time this happened. It didn't matter whether she was hallucinating or not, _because this was the second time he had seen Alice crying... and this time it was much worse._

"...It stinks..." The quiet Alice finally sniffed.

 _He couldn't take it anymore, whatever she was hallucinating was making her heart sick. This had to stop._

Jack suddenly plunged both hands in the space between them, determined to wake her up at all costs.

Fastening a loud intention on his face was all he had managed to do, because as soon as he met Alice, his loud eyes were silenced.

"...It really.. stinks..."

Alice was clinching at an ache in her chest.

"A..lice...?" Jack felt like he was looking at her from lower ground.

 _Because even though the gems in her eyes shimmered with sadness and pain, she was in fact... angry?... Fighting with something_ _?_

 _..._

 _Trying to figure what such a face could mean,_

 _he never noticed her body leaning closer..._

 _Before he could ask why his cheek was in her small palm..._

 ** _"—...!?"_**

 _...He was asking why her soft lips were warming his._

 _"...This feeling... Stinks so much...!"_

 _._

 _._

* * *

 _02.06.18_

 _End of CH.22_


	23. Debugging

_**Rating:**_ _T_

 _ **Disclaimer:**_ _Characters and universe in this fic belong to Natsume, Marvelous Entertainment, etc._

* * *

.

.

Alice hated _bugs._

To begin, she hated bugs in her _computers_. From her personal experience a single undetected bug within a program's code could prove more than capable of causing a whole system to come down crashing, more than often wiping clean tons of valuable data that she'd have to recover in a manner no easier to sweeping dust in a dustpan, _fingers-crossed_ , of course. Hours over hours would have to be wasted tracking down just one pesky little thing, so tiny, yet so troublesome.

Needless to say, the _other_ kind of bugs, that is, **_—_** _the real, living bugs_ ** _—_** were inconceivable foul existences instilling an alien horror in her eye. If her glimpse happened to notice a harmless little spider crawling around the blast in her screams could easily blow windows to pieces. Not to mention, there was actually a brat in Leaf Valley that was quite fond of bugs. Or that is to say, quite fond of surprising _her_ with bugs. She couldn't put her finger on how they called him though. _Short kid, smug face, had a cave explorer's kind of hat._ It was just on the tip of her tongue. What was his name again?

...

 _A name going in her black list, that was for sure._

 _ **Chapter 23. Debugging**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

It didn't really matter whether they were real or just in the code, being in the presence of a bug was a stinking situation either way.

However, that night Alice had made a terrifying discovery that was going against all she had known.

There were bugs she could not get rid of as easily as by just typing a line on a keyboard, or by throwing things to squash them. They were beyond doubt a new, evolved kind of bug species, resilient to every debugging method handed down to man.

What's worse, they were the single worst kind of bugs she could encounter, since these ones could fly. They were equipped with large wings, fluttering all over the place.

There were myriads of them...

...and they were all inside her stomach.

 _"Go away you damn butterflies...! Go away..!"_

Alice was sweating bullets. She had been holding back for so long she had almost lost her sanity.

The CEO had locked her jaw and wouldn't stop pressing on until each and every one of those damn bugs in her stomach were gone.

It was too late for the farmer's blurring blink to realize what on earth had snared his mouth. Only his spine shot a withdrawal bolt to wake his arms, but it was no different to a doomed deer's futile twitching. Alice had quickly exploited the recoil to further press her way up and hook onto his shoulders. He wasn't going anywhere nor he'd have a say in the matter, this was a pain for her as well.

For Alice this wasn't about some cliche way of expressing one's true feelings through some corny kiss, not by a long shot. This was just a stinking situation she had to endure for the sake of debugging. Because just like how program bugs could make a system crash, likewise these annoying bugs in her stomach had infected her with something that was not that much different from a crash.

 _A crush._

It was embarrassing and frustrating to admit, but it was the unvarnished truth. She had a crush on Jack and it was his fault. _All of it._ What was happening now was him naturally facing the backlash of growing on the wrong person. A crush had never knocked her door, not when she was a teen, not even back in kindergarten. She wasn't going to let herself fall for such a stupid thing now that she was an adult —especially one that was intelligent and smart enough to be a company's CEO. It was idiotic to even think about.

This was about debugging and nothing else.

All she needed was to smash her lips between them like she was smashing the butterflies in her stomach. Her stupid crush on Jack was en route to die and everything would be back to normal. No more fever, no more stuttering, no more missing heartbeats... _no more Jack-dreams._

And it was working.

The fluttering in her stomach was becoming quiet, she was in perfect control of her fever, she was determined to see this through to the end. Soon she'd open her eyes and her heart would remember how it was to beat without making broken sounds in her ears.

The debugging process would be done any minute now... It was just stalling a bit towards the end... She wasn't faking to linger because she was anticipating some kind of response from _him_ of course, the debugging was just slowing down, like every loading bar at the end, so... _Any minute now.. Any minute now..._

 _"Mn **—!** " __She stifled a frantic cry when_ _Jack stopped pushing her arms._

A hiccup that inevitably caused the bar to freeze, so close to the end as well.

Jack wasn't fighting back at all. It was like... all the tension he had been wrapping around himself like armor had suddenly crumpled like a refreshment can.

Alice wasn't imagining things; The stiff walls on his mouth were giving in, and slowly...

 _"_ _ **—**_ _!" she could feel the makings of an exploitable breach. "D-Don't tell me he...wants to..!"_

Her sealed lashes squeezed and trembled at this outrage.

 _How presumptuous..!_

Did he really think he could push his luck? Asking her for a real _intimate_ kiss in such a cheeky manner? He could find himself behind bars on assault charges faster than a finger's snap if she wished so. He was just fortunate the debugging was so slow to finish, because it would finish. _Eventually._ For now Alice couldn't do anything but frown through this infuriating entanglement.

There was no helping it. Her beauty had no match in this world and she knew her charm had a delicate appeal to the eye. Any guy would instantly fall head over heels sighting such a heavenly existence. She had already lost count how many _rich_ guys had been lining up every day outside her door to ask for her hand. To think a farmer like Jack could resist? _After a kiss?_ He never stood a chance.

.

.

 _._

 _._

Two minutes had passed and the rain had turned into awkward hail pelting her roof. She was getting numb now. It didn't look like the debugging had any intentions to finish.

Her nose sighed and the warm air bounced back empty-handed. Alice finally came to terms with reality.

 _"...He's just unconscious, isn't he?"_

 _._

 _._

* * *

 _11.06.18_

 _End of CH.23_


End file.
